THE ROMANCE OF 
THE COMMONPLACE 

BY GELETT BURGESS 





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THE ROMANCE OF THE 
COMMONPLACE 



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THE ROMANCE OF THE 
COMMONPLACE 



By 

GELETT BURGESS y 

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Author op The White Cat. The Heart Line, 
Love in a Hurry. Etc. 



Now things there are that, upon him who sees, 
A strong vocation lay; and strains there are 
That whoso bears shall bear for evermore. 

— Robert Louis Stevenson. 



INDIANAPOLIS 

THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 



C«pV Zj 



Copyright 1902 
By Gelett Burgess 

Copyright 1916 
The Bobbs-Merrill Company 



* N°> ^ 



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PRESS OF 

BRAUNWORTH & CO. 

BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTER* 

BROOKLYN, N. y. 



FEB 24 1916 



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S>Ci. A 4 2 0897 p 7 , 



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TO 
MY SISTERS, ELLA AND ANNE: 

WITH WHOM 
THIS PHILOSOPHY WAS PROVEN 



PREFACE 

Of course you have heard of that faithful widow 
who, in her old age, visited the glacier to find the body 
of her husband, fallen into a crevasse during their 
honeymoon. 

So it seems now to publish, after sixteen years, the 
careless chattering of my youth. And as she marveled 
at the change, so do I. To her, poor soul, the altera- 
tion was in that half-forgotten, idealized youthful mate 
— but I have no such illusion. Well I know the change 
is in myself. 

So, how innocent, how irresponsible do these slight 
essays now appear! And yet I can not redress them 
in the sophisticated diction of my prime. They must 
wear the frivolous costume in which they first went 
forth, or lose all their character. As well might one 
try to rewrite a love-letter when one's passion has 
cooled. 

For those wherein I have prosecuted my main thesis 
I have less desire to apologize. Their enthusiasm will, 
I. hope, atone for their superficiality. And, too, even 
in middle age I see no great flaw in their optimistic 
reasoning, such as it is, for to view life romantically 
I have found the surest cure for cynicism and ennui. 

The later essays may be regarded as diversions from 

the main theme, practical applications of my theorem, 

. . 

Vll 



viii PREFACE 

laboratory experiments in the principle. They may be 
judged as the pragmatic tests of my philosophy — if so 
slight a reasoning may be called by so pedantic a term. 

Here I have ranged perhaps too far afield and 
strayed at times from the subject. But the same 
mood, I think, inspires them. There are numberless 
ways in which the thesis might be illustrated, and I 
have but chosen a few, hit or miss. 

For the matter itself, then, I have few qualms, as I 
sought but to suggest, not to convince. It is the man- 
ner of my expression that I most regret. Such smooth 
legato movement is not at all to the present tempo of 
my literary mood, and this, even though to preserve 
consistency, I adopt at present, an earlier style. 

This is the pathos of the writer's profession — that 
his first work has more of life and his latest more of 
art. For matter he must gradually substitute manner. 
His first thoughts are ambitious and unrestrained, and 
growth of skill seems almost inevitably to preclude 
spontaneity. Indeed, in the realm of literature one 
might almost transpose the old plaint and say : "Si la 
jeunesse pouvait, si la vieillesse savait!" Youth be- 
lieves and dares, age has technique but lacks enthusi- 
asm. How age could create, if age were youth ! 

So now I might rewrite, enlarge, polish and perfect, 
make my style modern and vivid — but something 
would be awry. My slender boyish dreams would 
never stand the strain. 



PREFACE ix 

And so, I do but revisit the glacier and show you 
the vision of my youth. If it seem callow and quaintly 
clad, none the less was it lusty, and its song to my 
older ears still rings true. And perhaps, though mid- 
dle age may smile to-day at its obvious harmonies, 
some youngster may smile, too, to find the melody 
awakening a responsive thrill. 

G. B. 



INTRODUCTION 

To let this book go from my hands without some one 
more personal note than the didactic paragraphs of 
these essays contained, has been, I must confess, a 
temptation too strong for me to resist. The observing 
reader will note that I have so rewritten my theses that 
none of them begins with an "I" in big type, and 
though this preliminary chapter conforms to the rule 
also, it is for typographic rather than for any more 
modest reasons. Frankly, this page is by way of a 
flourish to my signature, and is the very impertinence 
of vanity. 

But this little course of philosophy lays my charac- 
ter and temperament, not to speak of my intellect, so 
bare that, finished and summed up for the printer, I 
am all of a shiver with shame. My nonsense gave, I 
conceit myself, no clue by which my real self might 
be discovered. My fiction I have been held somewhat 
responsible for, but escape for the story-teller is al- 
ways easy. Even in poetry a man may so cloak him- 
self in metaphor that he may hope to be well enough 
disguised. But the essay is the most compromising 
form of literature possible, and even such filmy con- 
fidences and trivial gaieties as these write me down 
for what I am. Were they even critical in character, 

xi 



xii INTRODUCTION 

I would have that best of excuses, a difference of taste, 
but here I have had the audacity to attempt a discus- 
sion of life itself, upon which every reader will believe 
himself to be a competent critic. 

By a queer sequence of circumstances, the essays, 
begun in the Lark, were continued in the Queen, and, 
if you have read these two papers, you will know that 
one magazine is as remote in character from the other 
as San Francisco is from London. But each has hap- 
pened to fare far afield in search of readers, and be- 
tween them I may have converted some few to my 
optimistic view of every-day incident.* To educate the 
British Matron and Young Person was, perhaps, no 
more difficult an undertaking than to open the eyes of 
the California Native Son. The fogs that fall over 
the Thames are not very different to the mists that 
drive in through the Golden Gate, after all ! 

Still, I would not have you think that these lessons 
were written with my tongue in my cheek. I have 
made believe so long that now I am quite sincere in 
my conviction that we can see pretty much whatever 
we look for; which should prove the desirability of 
searching for amusement and profit rather than for 
boredom and disillusion. 

We are in the day of homespun philosophy and 
hand-made dogma. A kind of mental atavism has 
made science preposterous; modern astrologers and 
palmists put old wine into new bottles, and the discus- 



INTRODUCTION xiii 

sion of Psychomachy bids fair to revolutionize the 
Eternal Feminine. And so I, too, strike my attitude 
and apostrophize the Universe. As being, in part, a 
wholesome reaction from the prevailing cult, I might 
call my doctrine Pagan Science, for the type of my 
proselyte is the Bornese war chief peripatetic on 
Broadway — the amused wonderer. But I shall not 
begin all my nouns with capitals, for it is my aim to 
write of romance with a small "r." Also my philos- 
ophy must not be thought a mere laissez faire; it is an 
active, not a passive, creed. We are here not to be 
entertained, but to entertain ourselves. 

I might have called this book A Guide Through 
Middle Age, for it is then that one needs enthusiasm 
the most. We stagger gaily through Youth, and by 
the time Old Age has come we have usually found a 
practicable working philosophy, but at forty one is 
likely to have a bitter hour at times, especially if one 
is still single. Or, so they tell me ; I shall never con- 
fess to that status, and shall leap boldly into a white 
beard. A kindly euphemism calls this horrid, half- 
way stage one's Prime. I have here endeavored to 
justify the usage, though I am opposed by a thousand 
poets. 

If some of these essays seem but vaguely correlated 
to my major theme, you must think of them as being 
mere illustrations or practical solutions of the com- 
monplace, solved by means of the theory I have de* 



xiv INTRODUCTION 

veloped and iterated. It was hard, indeed, to know 
when to stop, but, ragged as are my hints, I hope that 
in all essentials I have covered the ground and formu- 
lated the main rules of the Game of Living. One does 
not even have to be an expert to be able to do that! 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Preface vii 

Introduction xi 

PART I 

THE ROMANCE OF THE COMMONPLACE 

April Essays 1 

Getting Acquainted 9 

Dining Out 15 

The Uncharted Sea 21 

The Art of Playing . . 27 

The Use of Fools 35 

Absolute Age 41 

The Manual Blessing 47 

The Deserted Island 53 

The Sense of Humor 60 

The Game of Correspondence 66 

The Caste of the Articulate 72 

The Tyranny of the Lares 78 

Costume and Custom 84 

Old Friends and New 90 

A Defense of Slang 96 

The Charms of Imperfection 103 

"The Play's the Thing" . 109 

Living Alone 116 

Cartomania 122 

The Science of Flattery 128 

Romance en Route 135 

The Edge of the World 140 

The Diary Habit 147 



CONTENTS— Continued 

PAGE 

The Perfect Go-Between 153 

Growing Up 159 

A Pauper's Monologue 164 

A Young Man's Fancy 170 

The Bachelor's Advantage 177 

The Confessions of an Ignoramus 182 

A Music-Box Recital 188 

A Plea for the Precious 194 

Sub Rosa . 201 



PART II 

THE RATIONALE OF THE PERVERSE 

Wanderlust 209 

The Wonderer 214 

Where Is Fancy Bred? 220 

The Divine Fastidiousness 227 

The Spirit of the Race 233 

Black Coffee 239 

The Gargoyle's Kin 245 

The Fruit of the Moment 252 

The Burden of Beauty 259 

The Gentleman's Code 264 

Nonsense, Limited 270 

Feminine Modernity 276 

The Golden Mean 281 

Maxims and Saws 288 

X Is Greater Than Y 293 

Women's Fashions 299 

Personality 306 

Absence 311 

The Keepsake 317 

The Decorative Virtue 329 



THE ROMANCE OF THE 
COMMONPLACE 



PART I 
The Romance of the Commonplace 



THE ROMANCE 
of the COMMONPLACE 



APRIL ESSAYS 

THEY were begun in the April of my life, and 
though it is now well into mid- June, some of the 
glamour of the Spring yet inspires me, and I am still 
a-wondering. I have tried every charm to preserve 
my youth, and a drop of wine and a girl or two into 
the bargain, but the game is near played out. 

But what boots marbles and tops when one is ini- 
tiated into the mysteries of billiards and chess? It 
has taken me all these years to find that there is sport 
for every season, and the rules vary. To make a bold 
play at life, then, without cheating (which is due only 
to a false conception of the reward), and with the 
progress, rather than the particular stage reached, in 
mind, is my aim. So I have tossed overboard all my 
fears and regrets, and gone in for the higher prob- 
lems of maturity. 

1 



2 APRIL ESSAYS 

Still, a few of the maxims I drew from my joys and 
sorrows in the few calmer moments of reverie per- 
sist ; and these all strengthen me in the romantic view 
of life. A man must take his work or his art seri- 
ously, and pursue it with a single intent; he must fix 
on the realities first of all, but there is room for im- 
agination as well, and with this I have savored my 
duties, as one puts sauce to pudding. Enough has 
been written on the earnestness of motive, of sobriety 
and all the catalogue of virtues usually dignified with 
capital initials. I own allegiance to an empire beside 
all that — another Forest of Arden — the tinkle of whose 
laughter is a permanent sustained accompaniment to 
the more significant notes of man's sober industries. 

Must I be dubbed trifler then, because I make a 
game of life? Every man of spirit and imagination 
must, I think, be a true sportsman. It is in the blood 
of genius to love play for its own sake, and whether 
one uses one's skill on thrones or women, swords or 
pens, gold or fame, the game's the thing! Surely, it 
is not only the reward that makes it worth while, it is 
the problem — the study of each step on the way, the 
disentangling of the knotted cord of fate, the sequence 
and climax of move after move, the logical grasp of 
what is to come upon the chess-board. As it is in the 



APRIL ESSAYS 3 

great, then, may it not be in the small? To one of 
fancy and poetic vision, mere size is an accident, a per- 
sonal element, a relative, not an absolute quality of 
things. The microscope reveals wonders to the sci- 
entist, as great and as important as does the telescope. 
The leaf is as complex as the forest. To the poet, "a 
primrose by the river's brim" has the beauty of the 
Infinite. And so nothing is commonplace, or to be 
taken for granted. One needs only the fresh eye, the 
eagerness of interest, and this Universe of workaday 
things which, with the animals, we get "for a penny, 
plain," may be colored with the twopence worth of 
mind by which we are richer than they. 

We have all passed through that phase of art-appre- 
ciation in which familiar objects are endowed with an 
extrinsic esthetic value. The realist discovers a new 
sensation in a heap of refuse, the impressionist in the 
purple shadows of the hills. In weaker intellects the 
craving for this dignifying of the obvious leads to the 
gilding of the rolling-pin or the decalcomanie decora- 
tion of the bean-pot. With something of each of these 
methods, I would practise on every-day affairs, and 
make them picturesque. 

This is, perhaps, a characteristically Oriental point 
of view of life. Undoubtedly it is the Japanese pose, 



4 APRIL ESSAYS 

and it is well illustrated in their art. What, by Korin, 
would be thought too insignificant for portrayal ? He 
had but to separate an object, or a group of objects, 
from its environment and he beheld a design, with line, 
mass, color and notan. Art was to him not a question 
of subject, but of composition. He held his frame be- 
fore a tiny fragment of the visible world, any frag- 
ment, indeed, and, placing that in its true position, not 
in regard to its surroundings, but in regard to the 
frame, it became a pattern. May we not, for our di- 
version, do thus with Life? If we hold up our frame, 
disregarding the accidental shadows of tradition and 
establishment, we may see bits of a new world. 

It is thus that the man from Mars would view our 
life and manners. Unsophisticated, he would hold his 
frame in front of a man, and, cutting him off from 
his family, his neighbors, his position in Society, he 
would see a personage as real and as individual as 
"the Man with the Glove," or "the Unknown Woman" 
is to us. He would bring an uncorrupted eye and see 
strange pictures in the facts of our jaded routine. In 
accustomed meetings and actions he would see hidden 
possibilities and secret charms. He would witness this 
drab life of ours as a bewilderingly endless romance. 
Nothing would be presupposed, nothing foreseen, and 



APRIL ESSAYS 5 

each turn of the kaleidoscope would exhibit another 
of the infinitely various permutations of human rela- 
tionship. 

Such is the philosophy of youth. It denies the con- 
ventional postulates of the Philistine. It will not ac- 
cept the axioms of the unimaginative — two and two 
may prove to make five ; upon due investigation, seem- 
ingly parallel cases may widely diverge, and the greater 
may not always include the less, in this non-Euclidean 
Geometry of Life. It transmutes the prose of living 
into the poetry of idealization, as love transmutes the 
physical fact of osculation into the beatitude of a kiss. 
Of well-known occurrences it makes mysteries and it 
turns accepted marvels into simple truths, comprehen- 
sible and self-evident. 

Culture refines and analyzes. It seeks the invisible 
rays of the spectrum and delights in overtones, subtle 
vibrations and delicate nuances of thought. So this 
neglected philosophy of enthusiasm also gleans the neg- 
lected and forgotten mysteries of humanity. Its virtue 
is in its economy ; it wrings the last drop of sensation 
from experience. Like modern processes of manufac- 
ture it produces good from what was considered but 
waste and tailings. By a positive contribution to hap- 
piness it refutes the charge of trifling, for in the prac- 



6 APRIL ESSAYS 

Use of this art one does but pick up what has been 
thrown away. All's fish that comes to its net. 

And so, I set out to discover for myself what was 
most sanely enjoyable — what would last without fad- 
ing or rusting — what gold, in short, life had hidden 
in its gravel. 

But it is more than a science ; it has more than an 
economic value for happiness — it is a religion. The 
creed of hope bids one wonder and hope and rejoice, 
it teaches us to listen for the whispered voice, to see 
the spirit instead of the body of the facts of life. B,ut 
it does more ; it is illuminating, and reveals a new con- 
ception of beauty. 

There is an apocryphal legend of the Christ that 
tells how He with His disciples were passing along 
a road, when they came upon the body of a dead dog. 
Those with Him shrank from the pitiful sight with 
loathing, and drew away. But Jesus went calmly up 
to the decaying flesh and leaning over it, said gently, 
"How beautifully white are his teeth!" The custom- 
ary moral drawn from the story is one of gentleness 
and pity, the kindness and charity of looking at the 
good rather than the evil that is present. But it has 
a more literal meaning, and teaches clearly the lesson 
of beauty. 



APRIL ESSAYS 7 

For it has come to this : that even in our pleasures 
we are influenced by prejudice and tradition. Some 
things are as empirically branded beautiful or ugly, 
as others are declared right or wrong, and to this 
dogma we conform. Korin, when he held his frame 
before a clothes-line fluttering with damp garments, 
saw not only an interesting design, but a beautiful 
one ; yet the Monday's wash might be taken as some- 
thing typically vulgar and ugly to the common mind. 

We Anglo-Saxons have debased many facts of life, 
once rightly thought of as exquisitely beautiful, into 
the category of the beast. Sexual passion is the great 
example, but there are myriads of lesser things which, 
viewed calmly, purely, as some strange god able to see 
clearly without passion or prejudice might view them, 
would take on lovely aspects. When such situations 
approach the pathetic, as the sight of some forlorn 
half -naked mother nursing her child on a doorstep, 
or the housemaid, denied of the chance of seclu- 
sion, embracing her lover in the publicity of the park, 
this divine phase of common human nature is patent 
to the casual observer. When they approach the comic, 
also, it is easier to believe that every scene may have 
its complementary phase, and the most careless may 
read the joke between the lines. But much of the 



8 APRIL ESSAYS 

more subtle delight of life escapes us, like the tree- 
toad in the oak, because it is so much a part of 
its surroundings; its charm is of intrinsic value — so 
subtly incorporated that we do not notice it. We are 
used to finding our beauty within gilt rectangles, set 
off from other things not so denominated as especially 
worthy of regard; we expect it to be labeled and 
highly colored. 

Two things alone remain safe from this bias of cus- 
tom — Love and Youth. To the lover, the tying of a 
shoe-lace on his mistress's foot may be as sacred a 
rite and may contain as much sentiment as the most 
impassioned caress. To the child, the mud-pile has 
possibilities of infinite bliss. To the one comes eter- 
nal beauty, to the other eternal mystery. And so, to 
touch these forever, and to lose no intermediary sen- 
sation of charm, whether it be humor, romance, pathos 
or inspiration, to be bound by every link that connects 
Youth to Love, that was my April essay ! 



GETTING ACQUAINTED 

TWO lives moving in mysterious orbits are drawn 
together, and for an instant, or maybe forever 
after, whirl side by side. We call the encounter an 
introduction, and we usually proceed to stifle the won- 
der of it by impersonal talk of art, books or the drama. 
It is an every-day affair and does not commonly stir 
the imagination. And yet to the connoisseur in living 
the meeting may be an event as well as an episode. 
He is a discoverer come to an unknown shore — it may 
be the margent of a boundless sea or not, but of a 
certain it is swung by new tides and currents to be 
adventured and plumbed. 

How can we, supercivilized out of almost all real 
emotion, develop the potential charm of this first 
glimpse of a new personality? It is guarded by con- 
ventionality; the shutters are down, the door is bar- 
ricaded ; you may knock in vain with polite interroga- 
tions, and no one appears at the window. Must we 
perforce set the house afire, smite or shriek aloud to 
bring this stranger's soul to his eyes for one search- 

9 



10 GETTING ACQUAINTED 

ing gaze, face to face ? The time is so short — we must 
greet, and pass on to the next ; alas, we but exchange 
easy commonplaces, and so the chance vanishes. Why 
not defy custom and boldly Snatch in that magic mo- 
ment some satisfactory taste of warm human inter- 
course ? 

Curiously enough, this strangeness—this lack of 
background in new acquaintances — is one of the 
freshest charms of meeting. Who would not throw 
off all restraint and talk frankly with a man from the 
planet Mars or Venus ? Could we resurrect an inhab- 
itant of Atlantis we could give him our whole confi- 
dence — and even a South Sea Islander, were he intelli- 
gent, might be our confessor. Where then shall we 
draw the line of convention? Mars is some one hun- 
dred forty million miles away — San Francisco is but 
three thousand five hundred — the ratio is inadequate, 
but there is a guarantee of candor in mere distance. 
May we not apply the same rule to nearer neighbors 
and look on them in this interesting light? 

There is no such stimulating instant possible for old 
friends, for they are bound by preconceived ideas of 
personality — they are pigeonholed as this or that — cir- 
cumscribed by mutual duty and sacrifice; they must 
reconcile present whims to past vagaries; they are 



GETTING ACQUAINTED 11 

held to strict account of consistency with previous 
moods ; but on our first meeting with another we are 
free of all this constraint, and if we have the courage 
may meet soul to soul without reserve. We may con- 
fess untellable things in that moment, for there is no 
perspective of formulated opinion into which the con- 
fidence must be fitted — the little secret is safe alone in 
the new mind, and will not be held to intolerable ac- 
count. We may even for this once state a brutal truth, 
for we are unpledged to distressing considerations. 
We may be in our most sacred thoughts more intimate 
with a stranger than with an old friend. Such is the 
divine franchise of this first sudden opportunity. No 
compact is yet sealed; you must take me as you find 
me, like me or not, it matters little, since it is for us to 
say whether or not we shall meet again. 

This play is, as Dickens says of melancholy, "one of 
the cheapest and most accessible of luxuries," for the 
scene is always ready, set in the nearest drawing-room. 
Every stranger has a possible fascination and comes 
walking in like a prince, incognito. It is probably 
your own fault, not his, if the disguise is not dropped 
during the first impetuous flurry of talk. 

Children do these things better, making friends not 
inch by inch, but by bold advances of genuine confi- 



12 GETTING ACQUAINTED 

dence, yet approaching each new mystery with respect. 
So we, too, must dress these our dolls, and put them 
into their first mental attitudes with sincerity and trust 
before they will come to life. We must put real feel- 
ing into the relation — giving and taking — so much 
that we can not only confide our tenderest spiritual 
aspirations, but invest trifles with unaccustomed worth 
and significance. 

These are not impossible sensations even for such 
accidental fellowship, for nothing is too unimportant 
to reveal personality and orient one's point of view. 
But we must proceed from the inside, outward — begin- 
ning with truths and thence to fancy. It is the a priori 
method ; not deducing the character of your neighbor 
from his visible idiosyncrasies of taste and habit, but 
boldly inducing a new conception, making him what 
you will, and varying the picture by successive approx- 
imations as his words and actions modify your theory. 

No one is too dull for the experiment, as no mummy 
is too common to be unwrapped. Granted only that 
he is newly found, so that you have imagination, ro- 
mance and sentiment on your palette, you may paint 
him as you will. The colors may wash, but for the 
while he is your puppet and must dance to your piping, 
if, indeed, you do not become his. 



GETTING ACQUAINTED 13 

There are those, of course, who will but cry "Oh!" 
and "Ah !" to your essays — dolts with neither wits nor 
words nor worth, who take all and give nothing; no 
one can set such damp stuff afire. Well, after all, 
though you have unmasked, retreat is still possible. 
With how many duller friends have you given your 
parole and can not escape with honor ! 

Indeed, it is not so desirable that we should always 
win, as that the game itself be worth .the playing. 
One must not expect to make a friend at each intro- 
duction. To make the most of the minute in this way, 
then, to strike while the iron is hot (and, better, to 
heat it yourself) — this is the art of getting acquainted. 
It is the higher flirtation, not dependent on sex or tem- 
perament, but of many subtler spiritual dimensions, 
and though it soon turns into the old familiar ruts, 
the first steps, made picturesque by a common fancy, 
shall never lose their glamour, and one shall remember 
to the very last how the first short cuts to friendship, 
dared together, excited our souls. 

But do not confound playing with playing a part. 
One may do all this sincerely, honestly giving good 
coin, and that is the only game worth while ; for of 
a sudden the relationship may wake into new beauty 
like a dream come true, and you will find yourself in 



14 GETTING ACQUAINTED 

Arcady. No more fooling then, for the real you is 
walking by my side, hand in hand. We shall not be 
sorry either, shall we, that we hurried round the first 
corner into the open — that we jumped a few hedges? 
Surely we have an infinite friendship for our inaccessi- 
ble goal, and though the first rush was exhilarating, 
there are more inspiring heights beyond ! 



DINING OUT 

WHY human beings are so fond of eating to- 
gether and making a ceremonial of the business 
it is hard to say. Man is almost the only animal 
who prefers to consume his food in company with his 
kind, for even sheep and cattle wander apart as they 
graze, seeking private delicacies. Early in the morn- 
ing, it is true, most cultivated persons are savages, pre- 
ferring to breakfast in seclusion and dishabille ; lunch 
time finds them in a slightly barbarous state, and they 
tolerate company; but by evening we all become gre- 
garious and social, and resent the absence of an ex- 
pected companion at the table as of a course omitted. 
And so, whether we dine at home or abroad we call 
it a poor dinner where we have good things only to eat. 
The dullest, most provincial hostess has come to under- 
stand this, and each does what she can, in inviting 
guests, to form partnerships or combinations sympa- 
thetic and enlivening. There are, of course, always 
those impossibles, poor relations or what-not, whom 
policy or politeness imperatively demands, and every 

15 



16 DINING OUT 

dinner-table is, in attempt at least, a conversational 
constellation of stars of the first magnitude separated 
by lesser lights. 

From these fixed orbs radiate flashes of talk, and 
supplementing this, the laughter of the connecting cir- 
cle should follow as punctually as thunder on light- 
ning. The hostess, like a beneficent sun, kindles and 
warms and sways her little system, while the servants 
revolve about the table in their courses, like orderly 
planets. 

But we might push the allegory a step farther. 
Though the round of a score of dinners may exhibit 
no more unusual a cosmogony than this, yet at every 
thirty-third event, perhaps, we may encounter a comet ! 
There is no prognosticating his eccentric course; he 
comes and goes according to a mysterious law, but 
wherever he appears, blazing with a new light, foreign 
to all our conventions, he is a compelling attraction, 
drawing the regular and steady astral devotees of 
fashion this way and that out of their orbits, shifting 
their axes, and upsetting social tides and seasons. 

To such an innovator a dinner is given not for food 
but for pastime, and it is a game of which he may 
change the rules as soon and as often as they hamper 
his enjoyment. It matters little to him that he is 



DINING OUT 17 

dressed for a feast of propriety. To him alone it is 
not a livery; he is not the servant of custom. If it 
pleases him to settle a dispute out of hand, he will 
send the butler for the dictionary while the discussion 
is hot, or more likely go himself forthright. If he 
wishes to see a red rose in the hair of his host's daugh- 
ter over against him, he will whip round two corners to 
her place, and adjust the decoration. And if it is nec- 
essary to his thesis that you, his shocked or amused 
partner, help him illustrate a Spanish jerabe, you too 
must up and help him in the pantomime if you would 
not have such fine enthusiasm wasted for a scruple. 

I knew one such once who retrieved an almost hope- 
lessly misarranged dinner by his generalship, usurping 
the power of the hostess herself. The guests were 
distributed in a way to give the greatest possible dis- 
comfort to the greatest number, though from stupidity 
rather than from malice. Mr. Comet solved the prob- 
lem at a glance. He rose before the fish was served, 
with a wine-glass in one hand and his serviette in the 
other. "The gentlemen," he announced, "will all kindly 
move to the left four places." It was before the day 
of "progressive dinner parties," and the scheme was 
new. The ladies gasped at his audacity, but after this 
change of partners the function began to succeed. 



18 DINING OUT 

Your comet, then, must not only be a social anarch- 
ist, but he must convert the whole company, or he 
presents merely the sorry spectacle of a man making 
a fool of himself, never a sight conducive to appetite 
or to refined amusement, except perhaps to the cynic. 
He must be able to swing the situation. He must be- 
lieve, and convince others, that the true object of a 
dinner is to amuse, and if it should take all of the time 
devoted to the entree for him to show the pretty sculp- 
tress at his right how to model an angel out of bread, 
his observing hostess should feel no pang that he has 
neglected his brochette. After all, the elaborate su- 
pervision of the menu was undertaken, any modern 
hostess will acknowledge, only that, in the dire case 
her guests did not succeed in amusing one another, 
they might at least have good things to eat. Every 
dish untasted in the excitement of conversation, then, 
should be a tribute to her higher skill in experiments 
with human chemistry. 

If she can catch no comet, however, she must be 
contented with lesser meteoric wits who make up for 
real brilliancy by saying what they do say quickly and 
spontaneously; with the punsters, in short, and such 
hair-trigger intellects. Failing these, the last class 
above the bores-positive are those well-meaning diners- 



DINING OUT 19 

out who load themselves with stories for a dinner as 
a soldier goes into an engagement with a belt full of 
cartridges. They may not get a chance for a shot very 
often, but given an opening, their fire is accurate and 
deadly till the last round is gone, when they are at the 
mercy of a more inventive wit. Yet even these welter- 
weights have their place at the table, for we must have 
bread as well as wine. 

It was one of Lewis Carroll's pet fancies to have a 
dinner-table in the shape of a ring, and half the guests 
seated inside upon a platform which revolved slowly 
round the circle till each one had circumnavigated the 
orbit and passed opposite every guest seated on the 
outside of the table. But this would break up many 
of the little secret schemes for which the modern din- 
ner is planned, and many a young man would suddenly 
find himself flirting with the wrong lady across the 
board. 

And this last hint carries me from the exoteric to 
the esoteric charms of the dinner. Here, however, you 
must guess your own way ; I dare not tell you precisely 
what it means when Celestine shifts her glass from 
left to right of her plate, nor what I answer when 
I raise my serviette by one corner, for Celestine and 
I may dine with you some day, and you may remember 



20 DINING OUT 

our little code. You would better not invite me any- 
way, for, though I am no comet, yet I admit I would 
be mad enough to upset the claret purposely rather 
than have nothing exciting happen ! 



THE UNCHARTED SEA 

\Y, THERE'S the rub! If we could but forecast 
jljL our dreams, who would care to keep awake? 
In that we are no further advanced than in the times 
of Pythagoras ; still clumsy, ignorant amateurs in this 
most fascinating and mysterious game, played by every 
race and condition of men under the moon. 

There are some, maybe, who do not dream, poor 
half-made men and women, to whom a waking, literal 
prosaic life is the whole of existence. They stay idly 
at home, while you and I take ship upon the Unknown 
Sea and navigate uncharted waters every night. Then 
we are poets, dunces, philosophers, clowns or mad- 
caps of sorts in a secret carnival, changing not only 
our costumes, but often our very selves, doffing con- 
science, habit and taste, to play a new part at each per- 
formance. 

If we could but manage this raree-show, and not be 
mere marionettes, wired to the finger of the Magician, 
what tremendous adventures might we not undertake ! 
We have rare glimpses of the Lesser Mysteries, but 

21 



22 THE UNCHARTED SEA 

the inner secrets of that inconsequential empire are 
still undiscovered. The revels confound us; we are 
whirled, intoxicated or drugged, into a realm of con- 
fusion, and, out of touch with senses, reason and will, 
we can not quite keep our heads clear. How many 
of us have tried to "dream true," like Peter Ibbetson, 
even to obeying the foolish formula he described, 
lying, hands under head, foot upon foot, murmuring 
his magic words? 

Try as we may, those of us who are true dreamers 
can never quite accept the psychologist's explanation 
of dreams. Some cases may be easily understood, per- 
haps, such as the pathological influence of a Welsh 
rarebit, a superabundance of bed covers, or suggestive 
noises. We may account, too, for those absurd visions 
that appear so often on awakening, when one sense 
after another comes breaking into our consciousness, 
and when the mind, summoned suddenly to construct 
some reasonable relation between incongruous floating 
pictures, seizes on any explanation, however ridicu- 
lous. But of deeper dreams, dreams logical or mean- 
ingful, dreams that recur or are shared by others, 
modern science does not give any satisfactory theory, 
we can not accept them as mere subconscious work- 



THE UNCHARTED SEA 23 

ings of unsatisfied desires, and we are forced, will- 
ingly enough no doubt, to apply the hypotheses of 
mysticism. 

There are dreams, too, so progressive and educa- 
tional that they seem to involve a new science un- 
known in this workaday world. So many of us have 
had experiences with levitation in our dream-life that 
we are, so to speak, a cult. I myself began by jump- 
ing, timing each spring with the precise moment of 
alighting from a previous flight, profiting by the re- 
bound, and, after many developing experiments I am 
now able to float freely, even accomplishing that most 
difficult of all feats, rising in the air by a deliberate 
concentrated effort of will, even while lying on my 
back. Yet all of us, jumpers, flyers or floaters, must 
wait till that wonderful dream comes to us, after 
months maybe, to indulge in that most exhilarating 
pastime. 

Children's dreams are (until they are cruelly unde- 
ceived) quite as real as their waking moments, and 
it may be that we shall, in time, learn the forgotten 
art from them. It is dependent, no doubt, on their 
power of visualizing imagined objects while their eyes 
are shut, but while still awake ; but this ability to call 



# 24 THE UNCHARTED SEA 

up the images of anything at will is as soon lost as 
their belief in dreams. 

Though this habit and power of visualization fades 
and is forgotten in the growing reality of our outward 
life, it may not be impossible with practise to regain 
the proficiency, for at times of great physical fatigue 
and mental exaltation the power comes back, often 
intensified almost to the point of hallucination. If 
we could train our imagination then, and learn to see 
pictures when our eyes are shut, these might become 
more accurate and real, so that at the moment of sink- 
ing into unconsciousness, as we lose hold on tangible 
things, the vision would become one with the reality, 
and, still imagining and creating, we might pass over 
the footlights and dream true. To most of us there 
comes a recognizable moment when we know we are 
just at the border of sleep ; if we could then with our 
last effort of will keep control of the moving pictures 
we might go wherever we wished. 

We might learn, too, to remember more of what 
happens in the night. Usually we give what has passed 
in dream no more than an indulgent smile, and forget 
the strangeness of it all as soon as we are well awake. 
It is as if we had hurriedly turned the pages of an 
illustrated book. We recall, here and there, a few 



THE UNCHARTED SEA 25 

striking pictures, beautiful or comic, and the volume 
is replaced upon the shelves, not to be taken down till 
the next evening. It is a book from which we learn 
little; its contents are not even amusing to any one 
else, who has just as fanciful tales in his own dream- 
land library. If we could, on first awakening, impress 
our minds with the reality of our dreams, we might 
be able to recall more and more, and find that in spite 
of their incongruity there was some law which gov- 
erned their visitation and some meaning in their gro- 
tesque patterns. 

To one who dreams frequently, bedtime can not fail 
to be something to look forward to, to hope and to 
prepare for with efforts to capture in the net of sleep 
some beautiful dream. May we not, sometime, find 
the proper bait, and lie down confident that we shall 
be duly enchanted in some delightful way, according 
to our desires ? Till then we must each buy our nightly 
ticket in Sleep's lottery, and draw a blank or a prize, 
as Morpheus wills. 

Some say that the most refreshing sleep is absolute 
unconsciousness of time — that one should shut one's 
eyes, to open them only in the morning, with the night 
all unaccounted for. But no true dreamer will assent 
to this ; he knows it is not so. I was told in my youth 



26 THE UNCHARTED SEA 

that if I turned the toes of my boots toward the bed I 
should have a nightmare. I confess I have never 
dared try it. But, rather than not dream at all, I be- 
lieve I should be tempted to hazard the experiment. 



THE ART OF PLAYING 

TIME was when we made our own toys ; when a 
piece of twine, a spool, a few nails and a good 
supply of imagination could keep us busy and happy 
all day long. There were no newfangled iron toys 
"made in Germany," so tiresome in their inevitable 
little routine of performance, so easily got out of 
order, and so hard, metallic and realistic as to be 
hardly worth the purchase. 

A penny would, indeed, buy some funny carved 
wooden thing that aroused a half-hour's excitement, 
but it was never quite so alluring as when in the front 
window of the toy-shop. Such queer animals never 
became thoroughly acclimated to the nursery, and they 
lost their luster in a half-holiday. The things that 
gave permanent satisfaction were home-made, crude 
and capable of transformation. A railway train made 
of chairs might, with a small effort of the fancy, be- 
come a ship or a dragon. Are there such amateur toy- 
builders now, in this age when everything is perfect 
and literal, when even a box of building-blocks con- 
tains a book of plans to supply imaginative design to 

27 



28 THE ART OF PLAYING 

the modern child? Indeed, many children are nowa- 
years too lazy even to do their own playing. I have 
heard of one who was used to sit on a chair and order 
his nurse to align his nine-pins and bowl them down 
for him ! 

Perhaps one notices the lack of creative ability in 
children more in the city where ready-made toys are 
cheap and accessible, than in the country where the 
whole world is full of wonderful possibilities for en- 
trancing pastime. Nature is the universal playmate, 
perpetually parodying herself in miniature for the ben- 
efit of those who love to amuse themselves with her 
toys. Every brook is a little river, every pond an 
unfathomable sea. She plants tiny forests of fern 
and raises microscopic mountains in every sand-bank. 
Flowers and plants furnish provender for Lilliputian 
groceries, the oak showers acorn cups; what wonder 
we believe, as long as we can, in fairies ? 

And yet, strange to say, it is the city more often 
than the country child who feels the charm of these 
marvels. The freshness and the strangeness breed a 
fascinated wonder; it is, after flagged pavements and 
brick walls, almost too good to be true. The juvenile 
rustic is more practically familiar with Nature. It is 
his business to know when the flowers come, where 



THE ART OF PLAYING 29 

berries ripen and birds nest. It is scarcely play to 
him, it is a science to be applied to his personal profit. 
The woods and rivulets are his familiar domain, to 
be forayed and hunted specifically for gain. But this, 
though it is delightful, is not play. For him there is 
no glamour over the fields until long after, when, veiled 
from home, his native countryside has become inac- 
cessible. 

Perhaps the art of playing is, after all, a matter 
more of temperament than environment, for one sees, 
at times, good sport even in the city streets, though it 
is rare nowadays. I had my own full share of it, for 
my youth was an age of pure romance. My clan had 
its own code and its own traditions. Every man of 
us had his suit of wooden armor, his well-wrought 
weapons and his fiery steed. We were all for Scott. 
We had our Order, small, but well up in the technique 
of feudal ways, facile in sword-play, both with the 
thin, sinewy hard-pine rapier and the huge two-handed, 
double-hilted battle-sword that should stand just as 
high as one's head. On the brick sidewalks we tilted 
on velocipedes, full in view of the anxious passers-by. 
Cap-a-pie in pine sheathed with tin, with a shield bla- 
zoned with a tiger couchant, and inscribed with a Latin 
motto out of the back of the dictionary, many a long 



30 THE ART OF PLAYING 

red lance I shivered and many a wheel I broke, On 
Warren Avenue I did it, opposite the church. What 
would I not give, now, to see such sights in town! — 
instead, I watch little boys smoking cigarettes on the 
street corners, waiting for their girls. 

I knew a youngster, too, who organized in his town 
a post-office department, established letter-boxes and a 
regular service of boy carriers. He drew and colored 
the stamps himself — you will find them in few collec- 
tions, though they should have enormous value from 
their rarity. Such games are consummate play, even 
though the sport goes awry all too soon; it is too 
great to last ! 

It is the older brother who should give finesse to 
such sport. Without him, complications arise that ac- 
complish at last the ruin of the game. Many of us do 
not truly learn to play until it is too late to do so with 
dignity, and to these, the appreciation of the young 
gives a fine excuse for prolonging the diversion. We 
fancy we can not, when grown up, play imaginative 
games for the pure joy of it, as does the child ; we 
think we must have an ulterior motive. Yet the father 
who whittles out a boat for his son often gets more 
delight than the child, who would far rather do it 



THE ART OF PLAYING 31 

himself, no matter how much more crudely accom- 
plished. 

The theater is the typical play for grown-ups; the 
name itself, "play," is significant of the unquenchable 
tendency of youth. And this reminds me of a most 
amusing case where two grown-ups dared to be abso- 
lutely ingenuous. It was on a honeymoon, when if 
ever, adults have the right to yield to juvenile im- 
pulses. As the groom was titled and the bride fair, 
society took it ill that the two should retire to their 
country house and deny access to all neighbors. One 
at last called, too important to be denied admittance 
by the servants, and the astonished visitor discovered 
the happy pair stretched over the dining-room table, 
training flies whose wings had been clipped, to pull, 
in a harness of threads, little paper wagons! This 
had been their absorbing occupation for ten blissful 
days! 

An important element of play seems to be the doing 
of. things in miniature. See Stevenson, for instance, 
prone upon the floor, involved in romantic campaigns, 
massing his troops of tin soldiers, occupying strategic 
positions in hall and passage, skirmishing over the up- 
stairs "roads of the Third Class, impassable for artil- 



32 THE ART OF PLAYING 

lery," intercepting commissary trains laboring up from 
the Base of Operations in the kitchen, deploying cav- 
alry-screens upon the rug, and out-maneuvering the 
wily foe that defends the veranda, both being bound 
by the strict treaties of the play. There is your ideal 
big brother, and the game of toy soldiers is glorified 
into weeks of excitement ! 

The Japanese, immortal children, carry the game of 
diminution to its extreme. The dwarfed trees and the 
excruciating carved ivories are not the only symptoms 
of this delightful disease; for the perfection of the 
spirit of play one must see their miniature gardens, 
often the life-employment of the owners. No matter 
how small the patch of ground employed, every inch 
is perfect. Pebble by pebble, almost grain by grain, 
the area is arranged, the tiny rivulet is guided between 
carefully curved banks, wee bridges span the shores, 
little lanterns and pagodas are artfully placed, plants 
and flowers are sown, trees planted, fishes are domi- 
ciled, till the garden is a replica of Nature at her best. 
Each view is a toy landscape, and without a scale, as 
seen in a photograph, for instance, one might think 
it a garden of the gods. 

And yet there is a sort of play, too, where one may 
use infinite distances, macrocosms for microcosms, if 



THE ART OF PLAYING 33 

one has the courage and the power of visualization. 
These games are purely mental, feats of the imagina- 
tion, though not nearly so difficult as might be thought. 
I know a sober workaday lawyer, for instance, who 
combines the two methods with extraordinary clever- 
ness. His income is not derived solely from his prac- 
tise, I need hardly say. You will not catch him at 
his fascinating diversion, for his table is strewn with 
books and papers, and his playthings are not notice- 
able among the professional litter. 

I have known him to sit for hours gazing at the 
table, and, once in his confidence — for there is a fra- 
ternity of players, and one must give the grip and 
prove fellowship — he will tell you that he has shrunk 
to but an inch in height, so that, to him, his desk seems 
to be some three hundred feet long by a hundred feet 
wide, and its plateau is elevated two hundred feet 
above the floor ; as high, that is, as a church. Assum- 
ing that he has, by some miraculous means, shrunk to 
one-fiftieth of his stature, the size of everything visible 
is, of course, increased in a like proportion. His di- 
verting occupation, under this queer state of things, is 
to explore his little domain, and exist as well as is 
possible. 

What adventures has he not had! There was the 



34 THE ART OF PLAYING 

terrific combat with a cockroach as big as a dragon, 
which he finally slew with a broken needle! There 
was the dust storm, when the care-taker swept, and 
the huge snow crystals like white pie-plates, that came 
in when the window was opened. He had an enor- 
mous difficulty in getting water from a glass tumbler, 
and he broke his teeth upon the crystals of sugar that, 
as a lawyer, he had been thoughtful enough to strew 
upon the table for the benefit of himself as an Inch- 
ling. I believe he is now attempting to escape to the 
floor by means of a spool of thread, if he can not 
make up his mind to risk a descent by means of a 
paper parachute. It is a world of his own, as real to 
him as the child's toy paradise, a retreat immune from 
the cares of his daily life, a never-tiring playground, 
with perpetual discoveries possible. He, if any one, 
has discovered not only the art of playing, but has 
applied the science as well! 



THE USE OF FOOLS 

WHAT a dull world it would be if every one were 
modest, discreet and loyal to that conformity 
which is called good taste ! if, in short, there were no 
fools to keep us amused. What would divert us from 
the deadly routine of seriousness ? What toy scandal 
would we have to discuss at dinner? What would 
leaven this workaday world of commonplaces if every 
one were gifted with common sense? Is it not, when 
you stop to think of it, a bit inconsiderate to discoun- 
tenance buffoonery and to resent innocently interesting 
impropriety? Should we not rather encourage eccen- 
tricity with what flattering hypocrisies we may, so that 
we shall never be at a loss for things to smile at and 
talk about? 

A fair sprinkling of fools in the world is as enliven- 
ing as a pinch of salt in a loaf of bread. They give 
a relish to life and flavor with a brisk spicery of 
nonsense what would otherwise be oppressively flat. 
Civilized existence, if it were always cooked up and 
served to us by Mrs. Grundy herself, would be unpal- 

35 



36 THE USE OF FOOLS 

atable enough ; but luckily her infallible recipes are not 
always carried out, and a few plums and cloves get 
into her pudding. 

We may not care to play the part of public jesters 
ourselves, but the least we can do is to be grateful to 
those who are willing to become absurd for our benefit. 
Patronize them daintily, therefore, lest they backslide 
into propriety ; remember that there is such a thing as 
enjoyment without ridicule. To make fun of a per- 
son to his face is a brutal way of amusing one's self ; 
be delicate and cunning, and keep your laugh in your 
sleeve, lest you frighten away your game. 

But there will doubtless always be enough who are 
willing to play the guy, whether we encourage or con- 
demn. The fool is a persistent factor in society, and 
yet the common misconception of his status and eco- 
nomic function is silly and unfair. With the prig and 
the crank, the fool has been reviled from time immem- 
orial and persecuted out of all reason. He is protected 
by no legislation ; your fool is always in season, and is 
the target for universal contempt. Instead of this 
perpetual fusillade of wits, there should be a "close 
season" for fools to allow them to propagate and grow 
fearless, after which we could make game of them in 
safety of a full supply. Since he 'is, in a way, the 



THE USE OF FOOLS 37 

lubricator of the wheels of life, a coiner of smiles, he 
should be carefully bred to give the greatest possible 
amount of diversion. He should be trained like an 
actor that his best points may be brought out; he 
should be paid a salary or kept in livery, as of yore, 
to amuse the public, with no need or excuse for 
sobriety. 

But until the fool is properly trained and appreci- 
ated and his place assured, we must put up with the 
amateurs that haunt the street and drawing-room. It 
is too much to hope for the sight of a zany every time 
we go out-of-doors, but, when we do encounter one, 
what a ray of sunshine gleams athwart our strict fash- 
ions — poor sober dun slaves to style and custom! If 
we chance on a woman who dares perpetrate her own 
radical theories of dress, who combines impossible 
hues, or commits a gay indiscretion in millinery, how 
superbly she is distinguished, for the moment, from the 
ruck and swarm of victims to good taste! She is at 
once an event and a portent. The afternoon is quaintly 
illuminated with a phenomenon, and we scan with 
new interest and expectation the dull and somber 
throng. 

How small a deviation from the mode, indeed, is 
necessary to provoke a revivifying smile! Every such 



38 THE USE OF FOOLS 

unconscious laughing-stock is a true benefactor, min- 
istering to our sense of superiority. Were we never 
to see the freaks, we would not know how glorious 
is our own uncompromising regularity. Truly, if we 
have sufficient conceit, every one in the world, in a 
way of thinking, may be considered foolish relatively 
to our own criterion. "All the world is queer except 
thee and me," said the Quaker, "and even thee is a 
little queer!" 

Such praise of fools may seem extravagant or illog- 
ical, but if it is so, it must be not because the fool is 
not helpful and stimulating in society, but because, 
after all, he is not so easily identified as one might 
suppose. Celestine tells me she never calls a man a 
fool, but instead asks him why he does so — and in 
this way she often learns something. That is the most 
disconcerting trait of fools ; often, on investigation, 
what appears to be genuine nonsense is but the con- 
sistent carrying out of a clever and original idea, 
whose novelty alone excites amusement. The fool 
thus cheats us of our due enjoyment by being in the 
right. It seems dishonest of a fool to instruct; it is 
beside the mark, and outside his proper sphere; and 
yet even Confucius is said to have learned politeness 



THE USE OF FOOLS 39 

from the impolite. To see one's own faults and weak- 
nesses caricatured spoils the laugh that should testify 
to the folly. 

We can not be sure, therefore, that the ass who 
amuses us by his eccentric absurdities may not eventu- 
ally cheat us of the final victory by proving to be but 
the vanguard of a new custom to which we or our 
children must perforce in time succumb and fall into 
line with him far behind, only then to count our pres- 
ent attitude foolish and old-fashioned. Let us there- 
fore laugh while we may, for your fool is but a chame- 
leon who refuses to change color. What to-day is 
arrant silliness may to-morrow be good horse-sense, 
wherefore it is wise to watch fools carefully when you 
find them, lest the sport spoil overnight, and you your- 
self become ridiculous, while the fool takes your place 
as the amused philosopher. 

The word "fad," they say, was derived from the 
initial letters of the phrase "for a day." So we, the 
followers of the latest mode and mood, are, it would 
seem, the true ephemera, and the fools who defy the 
local custom are immortal. The fool is merely an 
anachronism. All inventors, most poets and some 
statesmen have been honored with the title, since we 



40 THE USE OF FOOLS 

laugh chiefly at what we do not understand. There 
are more synonyms for "fool" than for any other word 
in the language ! 

So we must take our chances and smile at all and 
sundry, at men of one idea, hobby riders, cranks, 
poseurs, managing mamas and antic youths, blushing 
brides and fond parents, bounders, pedants, bigots and 
hens with their heads cut off. Laugh at them, the 
character parts in the comedy of life, for the show 
is amusing, but be not resentful if you find the privi- 
lege of laughing is a common right, and you in your 
turn may become a victim. For, strange as it may 
seem, many of these actors may be so foolish as to 
think you the fool yourself ! 



ABSOLUTE AGE 

WHEN I was a child I invented a game so 
simple and so passive that its enjoyment was 
permitted even on the rigorous Sundays of my youth. 
Upon a slate I ruled vertical columns, and at the head 
of these I wrote, "Men, women, boys, girls, babies, 
horses, dogs." Then, seated at a window command- 
ing the street I made note of the passers-by, and as 
fast as they appeared in sight I made a mark for each 
in the appropriate column. The compilation of this 
petty census was a pleasing pastime, and, moreover, 
it seemed to me that my categories were obviously 
complete. There were, in my world, but men and 
women, boys, girls and babies — what else, indeed? 

But this primary classification of sex and years did 
not satisfy me long, and I discovered that my system 
must be amended if I would segregate — mentally now 
— the various types I encountered. There were, for 
instance, good persons and bad ones, men educated 
and ignorant, rich and poor, and I superimposed on 
my first list one after another of these modifying con- 
ditions. But with a larger view of life these crude 

41 



42 ABSOLUTE AGE 

distinctions overlapped and became confused, and I 
saw that the whole system was but a rude makeshift. 

Yet until I could pigeonhole a new acquaintance in 
my own mind and put him with others of his kind I 
was never quite satisfied. Up to a certain stage in 
development, what we are most struck with is the dif- 
ference between persons, but after the first intellectual 
climacteric we begin to see resemblances, invisible be- 
fore, that knit men of different aspect together; and 
that game of synthesis once begun we must play it till 
we die. Every new acquaintance is an element of our 
experience — a new fact refuting or corroborating our 
theory of life, and, though we often may put the case 
into a separate compartment and label the specimen 
"unique," before long we shall probably have to recon- 
sider the whole collection and devise a new system of 
arrangement for the complex characteristics of human 
nature. 

What analysis, then, can we adopt which shall prove 
universally satisfactory? If we rank men according 
to mental, moral or spiritual attributes, one quality is 
sure to contradict or affect the other, and it is hard 
to decide which trait is paramount. Friendship is 
dependent on none of these things, and yet in our 
affections we recognize, almost unconsciously, grades 



ABSOLUTE AGE 43 

and qualities of attraction and kinship. Of a bunch 
of letters at our breakfast plate, we are sure to open 
a special one first or last, as the expectation of pleas- 
ure may decide. We accept this nearness, this inti- 
mate relationship, without reasoning; it is manifested 
in the first flash of recognition of the handwriting, at 
sight of a photograph, at the sound of a voice or a 
name. Some are indubitably of our own clan, and 
others, however their charm or a temporary passion 
may blind us for a time, are foreigners, and speak 
another language of the emotions. There are invisible 
groups of souls, mysteriously related, and the tie is 
indissoluble. 

So I have come to adopt as the final classification 
what, for want of a better term, I must call the Abso- 
lute Age — age or condition, that is, not relative, not 
dependent on the year of one's birth. No one, surely, 
has failed to observe children who seem to be older 
than their parents in possibility of development. One 
knows that in a few years this child will have caught 
up to and passed his father or mother in soundness 
of judgment, in a sense of the relative importance of 
things, in the power to distinguish sham, convention 
and prejudice from things of vital import. This child 
is older in point of Absolute Age. When his soul has 



44 ABSOLUTE AGE 

served its juvenile apprenticeship in the world of the 
senses he shall understand truths his parents never 
knew. 

This capacity for comprehending life does not seem 
to be dependent on actual definite experience with the 
world. The villager may have this hidden wisdom as 
clearly as the man who has seen and done, who has 
fought, loved and traveled far and well. The mystics 
hold that we have all lived before, and that some have 
profited by their experiences in former lives and have 
attained a fairer conception of the very truth. But, 
though this illustrates what is meant by the term Abso- 
lute Age, it is by no means necessary to accept such an 
explanation of the effects we perceive. It is enough 
that we can definitely classify our friends by their 
emotions and desires, and by their point of view on 
life. In other words, some are philosophers and some 
are not. And even the philosophers are of varying 
sects. Some have a keen, childlike enthusiasm for the 
more obvious forms of excitement, for all that is new 
and strange and marvelous, while others are incapable 
of being shocked, surprised or embarrassed — they have 
poise, and prefer the part of observer to that of actor 
in the game of life. 

And yet, too, there is a simplicity that comes from 



ABSOLUTE AGE 45 

a greater Absolute Age, a relish for real things that 
persists with enthusiasm. It is by this simplicity one 
may distinguish the cult from those that are merely 
blase or worldly wise. The joy in the taste of the 
fresh apple under the tongue, or in the abandon of 
the child at play, in the strength of youth and the grace 
of women — this is a joy that does not fade; no, not 
even for those who would not trouble to go to the win- 
dow if the king rode by! As a man can learn much 
by travel without losing his capacity for enjoying his 
native town, so one can enjoy life intellectually to the 
utmost without ever losing one's grasp on one's self, 
without being intoxicated by excitement or blinded by 
egoism, and yet feel still the clean sane joys of youth 
to the last. 

We have come to our Absolute Age by different 
paths. If we are of the same status, you and I, you 
may have learned one lesson and I another, yet the 
sum of our experience is the same. We are akin spir- 
itually, although we have not had the same process of 
development. You, perhaps, have fought down hate 
and I have conquered dishonesty, but we are calmer 
and wiser, we think, than those whom we smile at 
quietly when we view their eagerness for things that 
no longer concern us. We recognize, too, that there 



46 ABSOLUTE AGE 

are others to whose attainments our own powers are 
infantile. But in either case the superiority is neither 
mental nor moral nor spiritual — it is that mysterious 
inherent quality we call "caste." 



THE MANUAL BLESSING 

SURELY if there is one sharp active sensation 
that, in this changeful life of ours, we never tire 
of, never outgrow, it is in the satisfaction of creative 
manual work. There is a conservation of pleasure as 
there is a conservation of energy, and our taste is be- 
ing continually transmuted and evolved. One by one 
we outlive the joys of youth, the delights of physical 
exercise, the zest of travel, the beatitude of emotion, 
the singing raptures of love, passing from each to a 
more mature appeal, a more refined appetite, a subtler 
demand of the intellect or of the spirit. The familiar 
games lose their savor, the dance gives way to the 
drama, travel to the calmer investigation of homely 
miracles. We tire of seeing and begin to read, feast- 
ing peacefully at the banquet of the arts that other men 
have spread. This is, for many of us, what age means 
— a giving-up of active for passive pleasures when the 
old games lose their charm. 

But the joy of creation does not fade, for in that 
lies our divinity and our claim to the eternal verities. 
Each new product arouses the same thrill, the same 

47 



48 THE MANUAL BLESSING 

spiritual excitement, the same pride of victory, and 
yet, strangely enough, though we think we work only 
for the final notch of accomplishment, it is not the 
completion but the construction that holds, us en- 
tranced. Not the last stroke, but every stroke brings 
victory ! It is like the climbing of a mountain. Do 
we endure the toil merely for the sake of the view at 
the summit? No, but for the primitive passion of con- 
flict, the inch-by-inch fight against odds, the heaping 
of endeavor on endeavor, the continual measuring of 
what has been done with what remains to do. The 
finishing climax is but the exclamation point at the 
end of the sentence — most of the sensation has been 
used up before we come to the full stop, and that point 
serves but to sum up our emotions in a visible emblem 
of success. 

Many of us believe we are debarred from the exer- 
cise of this divine birthright, the joy of creation. We 
have neither talent nor genius — not even that variety 
which consists in the ability to take infinite pains. 
Are we not mistaken in this? I think we may each 
have our share of the immortal stimulus. 

To understand this, we must go back and back in 
the history of the race, and there we shall find that 
this satisfaction, this sane and virile delight in con- 



THE MANUAL BLESSING 49 

struction, was possible to the meanest member of the 
tribe. Its enjoyment came chiefly in the exercise of a 
laborious persistency in little things. The combina- 
tion or addition of the simplest elements achieved 
a positive pleasurable • result. The paleolithic man 
chipped and chipped at his flint until the arrow-head 
was perfected, and his joy, had he been able to an- 
alyze it, was not so much in the last stroke as in 
every stroke. Not so much that he had himself with 
his own hands made something, as that he had been 
making something of use and beauty, and the possi- 
bility of that joy abiding with him as long as he 
lived. The makers of ancient pottery repeated the 
same shapes and designs, or, if their fancy soared, 
dared new inventions; but the satisfaction was in the 
doing. The carvers and joiners of the Middle Ages 
worked as amateurs in cottage and hovel, and in their 
work lay their content ; no tyranny could wrest from 
them this well-spring of pleasure. Old age could but 
weaken the hand ; I doubt if it could tame the imme- 
morial joy of creation. 

We can not all be professional mechanics, for the 
division of labor has cast our lot more and more with 
the workers in intellectual pursuits. But we might 
make handicraft an avocation, if not a vocation, and 



50 THE MANUAL BLESSING 

that regimen would help our digestion, perhaps, more 
than pepsin or a course of the German baths. Were 
I a physician I should often recommend the craft cure 
— a panacea for dyspepsia, ennui and nostalgia. 

Here is my modern health resort, my sanitorium 
for these most desperate of diseases : a little hamlet of 
shops and tents on the foothills of the Coast Range 
in California, where as you work you can look across 
a green valley to the blue Pacific. Here in this new 
land nature calls fondly to your soul, and you may 
turn to the primitive delights of living and taste the 
tang of the dawn of civilization, fresh and wholesome 
as a wild berry. 

Squatting on the bare sun-parched ground, with an 
Indian blanket over his shoulders, is a corpulent banker 
with a flint hammer battering a water-worn boulder. 
Thus, less than a hundred years ago, the Temecula 
Indians hollowed out their stone mortars on this very 
mesa. Thus they spent happy days, slept like bears, 
and were up with the birds, each morn a day younger 
than yesterday. In this lodge of deerskins, where the 
ground is spread with yellow poppies, sits an ex-secre- 
tary of legation, who has known everything, seen 
everything, done everything but this — to cut with a 
knife of shell strange patterns upon a circular horn 



THE MANUAL BLESSING 51 

gorget. Finished, his wife might wear it with pride 
at the Court of St. James, yet it is but the reproduc- 
tion of a prehistoric ornament, its figures smeared with 
ocher, cobalt and vermilion, and inlaid with lumps of 
virgin copper by the mound-builders of the Mississippi 
Valley. In this open shelter of bamboo, a trysting- 
place for meadow-larks and song-sparrows, lies 
stretched upon the ground an East India warehouse- 
man, all his gout and lumbago forgotten in the raptur- 
ous delight of printing a pattern of checkered stripes 
with a carved wooden block upon a sheet of tapa that 
he himself — unaided, mind you — has pounded from 
the fibrous bark of the paper mulberry. His strenu- 
ous daughter, once world-worn and frozen, has left 
Nietzsche, Brahms and the cult of the symbolists, to 
sit cross-legged and weave the woolly zigzags of a 
Navajo blanket. It is the first thing she has made 
with her ten fingers since she baked mud pies in the 
sun ! Had she a scrap of mirror in her bungalow she 
could now face it without mortification. An open-air 
hand-loom is good for the complexion. 

But you need not journey to California. Rather 
make a pilgrimage to your own south attic. If you 
do but construct cardboard model houses with isinglass 
windows in your breakfast-room, you will perhaps 



52 THE MANUAL BLESSING 

find that more diverting than collecting cameos or first 
editions. If you can only compile a concordance to 
Alice in Wonderland you may achieve a hygienic and 
rejuvenating distraction. Can you cut, stamp, gild, 
lacquer and emboss a leather belt? Can you hammer 
jewelry out of soft virgin silver? No? But you 
could, though, if you tried! Can you forget the im- 
positions of convention in the rapt glow of pride in 
sawing and nailing together a wooden box ? No mat- 
ter how small it might be, how leaky of joint or loose 
of cover, it would hold all your worries! 



THE DESERTED ISLAND 

A FRIEND of mine is curiously hampered by a 
limitation precluding him from association with 
any one conversant with the details of the manufac- 
ture of cold-drawn wire. To show that this self-im- 
posed abstinence may indicate a most charming devo- 
tion to an ideal, rarely shown by the commonplace, 
is the object of this thesis, and that, too, despite the 
fact that an indiscriminating extension of the same 
principle would lead the radical to eschew the society 
of most of his acquaintances, as well as bar out the 
whole domain of didactic literature. 

When the day is done, and that entrancing hour is 
come for which some spend many of their waking 
hours in anticipation, to those blessed with fancy, the 
curtain of the dark arises, and within the theater of 
the Night are played strange comedies. To a select 
performance I invite all uninitiated who have never 
enjoyed the drama of the Deserted Island — the per- 
fect and satisfactory employment for the minutes that 
elapse after retiring and before the anchor is weighed 
and the voyage begun upon the Sea of Dreams. 

53 



54 THE DESERTED ISLAND 

There are undoubtedly more than I am aware of 
who are happy enough to maintain deserted islands 
of their own, many more, perhaps, than would con- 
fess to the possession. To some the history may be 
well under way ; they have long since discovered their 
demesne, and many improvements have already been 
successfully completed. Others, more adventurous, 
handicapped by stricter limitations and more meager 
outfit, are still struggling with the primal demands of 
food and shelter. But to those whose imaginations 
have never put so far out to sea, and would welcome 
this modest diversion, I advise an expedition of dis- 
covery and exploration this very night. You have but 
to go to bed, close your eyes, and after a few prelim- 
inaries you are there ! 

Authorities differ as to the allowable equipment for 
the occupancy of the sequestered territory. I my- 
self hold that it is manifestly unfair to be provided 
with tools of any kind ; to have a knife, now, I would 
call cheating. Surely the only legitimate beginning is 
to be vomited upon the beach stark naked from the sea, 
after some fearsome shipwreck in mid-ocean. Then, 
after years of occupancy, a man might taste the pride 
of his own resources, unfettered by any legacy inher- 
ited from civilization. Settle this point as you may, 



THE DESERTED ISLAND 55 

when the conditions of the game are once understood, 
the whole history of Science is to be re-enacted. 

I have a friend who arrived on the scene in an open 
boat containing a keg of water, a crowbar, a pruning- 
knife, a red silk handkerchief and a woman's petti- 
coat; and with these promiscuous accessories has, in 
the course of years, transformed the place, which now 
boasts a stone castle, entirely inhabitable. His island 
is about two miles long and a half-mile wide — much 
too narrow for comfort, I assert ; the proportions 
should be approximately five miles by three, with one 
dominant hill from which the whole territory may be 
surveyed. 

But the owner of the other island — he of the cold- 
drawn wire — boldly asserts his right to a half-dozen 
laborers, presumably natives, and with this force at 
his disposal he has done wonders with his fief. Glass 
has been manufactured, fabrics woven, ore smelted 
and fine roads constructed, so that there now remains 
nothing to be desired but bicycles upon which he and 
his slaves may traverse the highways. But in vain his 
unskilled assistants look to him for advice ; rack his 
wits as he may, he can devise no adequate system of 
making cold-drawn wire, and he is beginning to lose 
caste with his followers. 



56 THE DESERTED ISLAND 

Now at first sight one might think it necessary for 
him only to consult an encyclopedia, or to visit an iron 
mill, yet this course is strictly barred out by the rules 
of the game, which compels one to use only such infor- 
mation as comes naturally to hand — for one is likely to 
be cast ashore upon a desert island at any moment, and 
it is then too late for the research and education that 
have been before neglected. With any ingenious fellow 
who has his own amateur ideas on the subject, one 
may, of course, talk freely ; for he may represent one 
of the more intelligent of the natives ; but all they who 
really know whereof they speak are to be avoided. 
So the problem of the cold-drawn wire is still un- 
solved. 

I know of an artist who, free on this enchanted spot, 
has turned his energies to those diverting pursuits for 
which his studio leaves no time, and he builds gigantic 
rock mosaics on the cliffs, selecting from the many 
colored boulders on the beach. Luxuries are his only 
necessities even in his daily life, and the enormity 
of his trifling on this holiday playground is a thing 
to wonder at. His art, so used to a censorship of 
Nature, in his professional mimicries, here goes boldly 
forth and so mends, prunes and patches the aspect 
of his island that the place is now, he says, absolutely 



THE DESERTED ISLAND 57 

perfect; a consummation not altogether discreditable 
to a nude near-sighted man, whose eye-glasses were 
washed off before he arrived on the spot ! 

But, taking the situation a bit more seriously, what 
will he be in the years to come ? By what gradations 
Shall the lonely artist sink to low and lower levels, 
abandoned by the stimulus of the outer world, the 
need for advance, and the struggle for recognition? 
How soon would he lose the desire to render, in the 
medium at hand, the lovely forms of nature about 
him, the subtle tones of the earth and air, lapsing by 
stages into ever cruder forms of expression, till the 
whole history of his development had been reversed, 
and he became content with rude squares, triangles 
and circles for his patterns, the barbarous effigies of 
the human form, and the primary colors that satisfy 
the savage? 

And the sense of humor, too — that universal solvent 
of all our miseries, the oil that lubricates the cum- 
brous machinery of life — how soon would that go? 
Is it not, in the last analysis, dependent on the by- 
play of the social relationship of men? The incon- 
sistencies of our fellows must be first noticed before 
we can get the reflected light of ridicule on our own 
grotesque actions. It would indubitably be lost in such 



58 THE DESERTED ISLAND 

a sojourn, our impatience would have no foil, we 
would take ourselves more and more seriously until 
the end came on that day when we had at last for- 
gotten how to laugh. 

But, after all, as this text of the hypothetical de- 
serted island is better fitted for a romance than for 
a sermon, we may leave such forebodings and trace 
out only the rising curve of improvement. And so, 
too, interesting as it might be to experience, we may 
leave aside the moral speculations incident to the dis- 
cussion of the case where the place becomes occupied 
by a man and a woman. The possibilities of a ship- 
wreck in company are not for such a brief memoir as 
this; they offer consideration too intimate for these 
discreet pages, and are best left to the exclusion of 
a private audience. 

But choose your company carefully, I entreat you, 
if you are not soberly minded to be shipwrecked alone. 
I know of persons with whom, were I cast ashore, 
there could be no end not tragic, albeit these are highly 
respectable and praiseworthy individuals, who never 
did any harm except in that trick of manner by which 
we recognize the bore. I am often inclined to test 
the merits of others by mentally permitting them a 
short visit to my island, but the hazard is too great, 



THE DESERTED ISLAND 59 

and the thought of the possibility of their footprints 
upon the sand unnerves me. 

Yet, to a distant islet of this fantastic archipelago 
I seriously consider consigning certain impossible ac- 
quaintances, absolutely intolerable personalities, whose 
probable fate, forced to endure one another's society, 
interests me beyond words. Upon one side of this 
far-away retreat rises a steep cliff overhanging the 
sea, and here I behold in imagination one after an- 
other of these marooned unfortunates pushed head- 
long over the slope, as, unable to support the society 
of his companions, each has in turn, by some strata- 
gem, lured his hated accomplice in misery to the sum- 
mit of the bluff. 

Of one island I have not yet spoken. I can get no 
description of it save that it lies sleeping in the sum^ 
mer sun, washed by the sapphire tides and fanned by 
the cool south winds, its olive slopes rising softly from 
the beach, marked by a grove of fruit trees at the crest. 
More the owner will not tell, for Celestine says there 
is no use for a deserted island after it is charted; but 
by these signs I shall know the place, and my trees are 
felled and my sails are plaited that shall yet bear me 
over toward the southwest ! 



THE SENSE OF HUMOR 

MUCH as one may look through the small end of 
a telescope and find an unique and intrinsic 
charm in the spectacle there offered, so to certain eyes 
the whole visible universe is humorous. From the 
apparition of this dignified little ball, rolling soberly 
through the starry field of the firmament, to the un- 
warrantable gravity of a neighbor's straw, hat, macro- 
cosm and microcosm may minister to the merriment 
of man. There is more in heaven and earth than is 
dreamed of in the philosophy of the Realist. 
: It is one attribute of a man of parts that he shall 
have, in his mental vision, what corresponds to the 
"accommodation" of his eye, a flexibility of observa- 
tion that enables him to adapt his mind to the focus 
of humor. Myopia and strabismus we know ; the dul- 
lard can point their analogies in the mental optics, but 
for this other misunderstood function we have no 
name ; and yet, failing that, we have dignified it as a 
sense apart — the sense of humor. But no form of lens 
has been discovered to correct its aberration and trans- 
fer the message in pleasurable terms to the lagging 

60 



THE SENSE OF HUMOR 61 

brain ; and, unless we attempt hypnotism as a last re- 
sort, the prosiest must go purblind for life, missing 
all but the baldest jokes of existence. 

Is it not significant, that from the ancient termi- 
nology of leech-craft, this word "humor" has survived 
in modern medicine, to be applied only to the vitreous 
fluid of the eye? For humor is the medium through 
which all the phenomena of human intercourse may be 
witnessed, and for those normal minds that possess it, 
tints this world with a rare color — like that of the 
mysterious ultra-violet rays of the spectrum. And 
indeed, to push further into modern science and spec- 
ulation, perhaps this ray does not undulate, but shoots 
forth undeviating as Truth itself, like that from the 
cathode pole. Or, does it not strike our mental retina 
from some secret Fourth Direction? 

But this is mere verbiage; similes, flattering to the 
elect, but unconvincing to the uninitiate. Yet, as I 
am resolved that humor is essentially a point of view, 
I would have a try at proselytizing for the doctrine. 
For here is a religion ready made to my hand ; I have 
but to raise my voice and become its prophet. The 
seeds are all sown, the Fraternity broods, hidden in 
hidden chapters, guarding the grand hailing sign ; who 
knows but that a spark might not touch off this sea- 



62 THE SENSE OF HUMOR 

soned fuel, and the flame carry everything before it. 
O my readers, I give you the philosophy of mirth, the 
cult of laughter ! Yet it is an esoteric faith, mind you, 
unattainable by the multitude. Not of the "Te-he! 
Papa's dead !" school, nor of the giggling punster's 
are its devotees. No comic weekly shall be its organ. 
It must be hymned not by the hoarse guffaw, but in 
the quiet inward smile — and for its ritual, I submit 
the invisible humor of the commonplace. O paradox ! 

Brethren, from this flimsy pulpit, I assert with sin- 
cerity, that everything on two legs (and most on four), 
sleeping or awake, bow-legged or knock-kneed, has its 
humorous aspect. The curtain never falls on the di- 
version. You will tell me, no doubt, that here I ride 
too hard. Adam, you will say with reason, set aside 
in the beginning certain animals for our perpetual 
amusement — to wit : the goose, the monkey, the ostrich, 
the kangaroo, and, as a sublime afterthought — symbol 
of the Eternal Feminine — the hen. Civilization, you 
may admit, has added to these the goat — but, save in 
rare moods of insanity, as when the puppy pursues the 
mad orbit of his tail, the sight of only the aforesaid 
beasts makes for risibility. The cat, you will say, is 
never ridiculous. 

But here again we must hark back to the major 



THE SENSE OF HUMOR 63 

premise, unrecognized though it be by the science of 
Esthetic, that humor lies in the point of view. If I 
could prove it by mere iteration it would go without 
further saying that it is essentially subjective rather 
than objective. Surely there is no humor in insensate 
nature, as there is little enough in art and music. The 
bees, the trees, the fountains and the mountains take 
themselves seriously enough, and though, according 
to the minor poets, the fields and the brooks are at 
times moved to laughter, it is from a vegetable, point- 
less joy-of-life. Through the human wit alone, and 
that too rarely, the rays of thought are refracted in 
the angle of mirth, and split into whimsical rays of 
complementary sensations and contrasts. 

When we lay off the mantle of seriousness and re- 
lax the flexors and extensors, if we are well fed, 
healthy, and of a peaceful mood and capable of indo- 
lence, men and women, and even we ourselves, should 
become to our view players on the stage of life. And 
what then is comedy but tragedy seen backward or 
downside up? It is the negative or corollary of what 
is vital in this great game of life. The custom has 
been, however, to give it a place apart and unrelated 
to the higher unities, as the newspapers assign their 
witticisms to isolated columns. Rather is it the subtle 



64 THE SENSE OF HUMOR 

polarity induced by graver thought, the reading be- 
tween the lines of the page. To appreciate nonsense 
requires a serious interest in life. And as, to the vig- 
orous intellect, rest does not come through inactivity 
so much as by a change of occupation, the happy 
humorist is refreshed by the solace of impersonality. 

For, to the initiate, his own inconsistencies and 
indiscretions are no less diverting than those of his 
associates, and should frequently give rise to emotions 
that impel him to hurry into a corner and scream aloud 
with mirth. It is ever the situation that is absurd, 
and never the victim ; and in this lies the secret of his 
ability to appreciate a farce of which he himself is 
the hero. He must disincarnate himself as the whim 
blows, and hang in the air, a god for the time, gazing 
with amusement at the play of his own ridiculous fail- 
ures. In some such way do the curious turn over 
the patterned fabric, to discover, on the reverse, the 
threads and stitches that explain the construction of 
the design. 

This faculty, then, gives one the stamp of caste by 
which one may know his brethren the world over, an 
order of whose very existence many shall never be 
aware, till, in some after life, some grinning god con- 
ducts them to the verge of the heavens, and, leaning 



THE SENSE OF HUMOR 65 

over a cloud, bids them behold the spectacle of this 
little planet swarming with its absurdly near-sighted 
denizens. 

Ohe la Renaissance! for this is to be the Age of 
Humor. We travail for the blithe rebirth of joy into 
the world. The Decadence, with its morbid person- 
alities and accursed analysis of exotic emotion almost 
destroyed humor; yet we may adopt its methods and 
refine the simplicity of primary impulse, thus increas- 
ing the whole sum of pleasure with the delicate nuances 
that amplify the waves of feeling. Hark, O my reader ! 
Do you not hear them, rising like overtones and turn- 
ing the melody into a divine harmony ? 



THE 
GAME OF CORRESPONDENCE 

THE receipt of a letter is no longer the event it 
was in the old stage-coach days; railways, tele- 
phones and the penny postage have robbed it of all 
excitement. One expects now one's little pile of white, 
blue and green envelopes beside one's plate at break- 
fast, along with one's toast and coffee, and one tastes 
its contents as one opens the matutinal egg. We have 
forgotten how to write interesting letters as we have 
forgotten how to fold and wafer a sheet of foolscap 
or sharpen a quill. Some of our missives are not even 
worth a cursory glance, many by no means deserve 
an answer, and most are speedily forgotten in the col- 
umns of the morning journal. 

Yet, at times, on red-letter days, we find one among 
the number that demands epicurean perusal ; it is not 
to be ripped open and devoured in haste, it insists on 
privacy and attention. This has a flavor that the salt 
of silence alone can bring out; a dash of interruption 
destroys its exquisite delicacy. More than this, it must 

66 



THE GAME OF CORRESPONDENCE 67 

be answered while it is still fresh and sparkling, after 
which, if it be of the true vintage, it can afford still 
another sip to inspire your postscript. 

To your room then with this, and lock the door, 
or at any rate save it for an impregnable leisure. Open 
it daintily and entertain it with distinction and respect ; 
efface any previous mood and hold yourself passive 
to its enchantment. It need depend on no excited in- 
terest in the writer for its reception, for it has an 
intrinsic merit; it is the work of an artist; it is a 
fascinating move on the chess-board of the most al- 
luring, most accessible game in the world. 

Though the fire of such a letter need have neither the 
artificiality of flirtation nor the intensity of love, yet 
it must both light and warm the reader. It is not 
valuable for the news it brings, for if it be a work 
of art the tidings it bears are not so important as the 
telling of them. It must be sincere and alive, reveal- 
ing and confessing, a letter more from the writer than 
to the reader, as if it were written in face of a mirror 
rather than before the photograph of the receiver; 
and yet the communication must be spelled in the 
cypher of your friendship, to which only you have 
the key. We have our separate languages, each with 
the other, and there are emotions we can not dupli- 



68 THE GAME OF CORRESPONDENCE 

cate. This missive is for you, and for you only, or 
it ranks with a business communication. It is minted 
thought, invested, put out at loan for a time, bringing 
back interest to stimulate new speculations. There 
are no superfluous words, for the master strikes a 
clean sharp blow, forging his mood all of a single 
piece, welding your whim to his, and, fusing his sen- 
tences, there glows a spirit, a quality of style that 
bears no affectation ; it must not, of all things, become 
literary, it must be direct, not showing signs of operose 
polish. It must be writ in the native dialect of the 
heart. 

If it be a risk to write frankly, it is one that gains 
interest in the same proportion; it makes the game 
the better sport. But after all, how many letters, so 
fearfully burned, so carefully hid away, but would in 
after years seem innocuous ? You are seduced by the 
moment, and your mood seems, and impulses seem, 
dangerous, incendiary. You grow perfervid in your 
indiscretion, not knowing that the whole world is 
stirred by the same recklessness, and that each one 
is profoundly bored by all save his own yearnings. 
Not many of our epistles will bear the test of print 
on their own merit, expurgate them as you will; you 
need only fear, rather, that the letter will grow dull 



THE GAME OF CORRESPONDENCE 69 

even before it reaches its destination. The best of 
them, moreover, are written in sympathetic ink, and 
unless your correspondent has the proper reagent at 
hand, the sheets will be empty or incomprehensible 
even to him. Answer speedily as you may, too, it 
will be hard to overtake your correspondent's mood; 
he has overburdened his mind, precipitated the solu- 
tion, and is off to another experiment by the time his 
stamp is affixed. But you must do your best in re- 
turn ; reflect enough of his ray to show him he has 
shot straight, and then flash your own color back. 

There are virtues of omission and commission. It 
is not enough to answer questions ; one must not add 
the active annoyance of apology to the passive offense 
of neglect. One must not hint at things untellable ; 
one must give the crisp satisfaction of confidences 
wholly shared. Who has not received that dash of 
feminine inconsequence in the sentence, "I have just 
written you two long letters, and have torn them both 
up"? What letter could make up for such an exas- 
peration? Your master letter-writer does not fear to 
stop when he is done, either, and a blank page at the 
end of the folio does not threaten his conscience. 

If one has not the commonplace view of things, and 
escapes the obvious, it matters little whether one uses 



70 THE GAME OF CORRESPONDENCE 

the telescope or the microscope. Deal with the ab- 
stract or concrete, as you will discuss philosophy and 
systems, or gild homely little common things till they 
shine and twinkle with joy. Indeed, the perfect letter- 
writer must do both, and change from the intensely 
subjective to the declaratively objective point of view. 
He must, as it were, look you in the eye and hold you 
by the hand. 

Two masters whose letters have recently been 
printed may illustrate these two different phases of 
expression, though each could do both as well. And 
this first, from Browning's love letters, describes what 
the perfect letter should be : 

"I persisted in not reading my letter in the presence of my 
friend. ... I kept the letter in my hand, and only read it 
with those sapient ends of the fingers which the mesmerists 
make so much ado about, and which really did seem to touch 
a little of what was inside. Not all, however, happily for me ! 
or my friend would have seen in my eyes what they did not 



see. 



To this the twittering, delightful familiarities of 
Stevenson : 

"Two Sundays ago the sad word was brought that the sow 
was out again ; this time she had brought another in her flight. 
Moors and I and Fanny were strolling up to the garden, and 
there by the waterside we saw the black sow looking guilty. 



THE GAME OF CORRESPONDENCE 71 

It seemed to me beyond words ; but Fanny's cri du cceur was 
delicious. 'G-r-r !' she cried ; 'nobody loves you !' " 

It was the same art in big and little, for each stripped 
off pretense and boldly revealed his moment's per- 
sonality. 

And yet, and yet, a letter does not depend on any 
artistic quality or glib facility with words, for its inter- 
est. The one test of a letter is that it must bring the 
writer close to your side. You must fasten your mood 
on me, so that I shall be you for hours afterward. It 
sounds easy enough, but it is the most difficult thing 
in the world, to be one's self. "I long for you, I 
long for you so much that I thank God upon my knees 
that you are not here!" There, now, is a letter that 
promises well, but I dare not quote more of it, for the 
subject must be seen from another side. 



THE 
CASTE OF THE ARTICULATE 

FAIR or unfair though it be, I have come to ac- 
cept a letter as the final test of the personality 
of a new acquaintance. Not of his or her intellect or 
moral worth, perhaps, but the register of that rare 
power that dominates all attributes — - that peculiar 
aroma, flavor, timbre or color which makes some of 
our friends eternally exceptional. "Who dares classify 
him and label him, sins against the Holy Ghost ; I, for 
one, think I know him only inasmuch as I refuse to 
sum him up. I can not find his name in the dictionary ; 
I can not make a map of him; I can not write his 
epitaph." So writes Sonia of a friend with such a 
personality, and you will see by this that Sonia her- 
self is of the Caste of the Articulate. 

We are influenced first by sight, then by sound, and, 
lastly, by the written word. "She spoke, and lo ! her 
loveliness methought she damaged with her tongue!" 
is the description of many a woman who appeals to 
the eye alone. And in something the same way many 
who fascinate us with their glamour while face to face, 

72 



THE CASTE OF THE ARTICULATE 73 

shock us by the dreary commonplaceness of their 
letters. 

It would seem that an interesting person must inevi- 
tably write an interesting letter — indeed, that should 
be a part of the definition of the term interesting. But 
many decent folk are gagged with constraint and self- 
consciousness, and never seem to get free. 

"I wonder," says Little Sister, "whether these 
wordless folk may not, after all, really feel much 
more deeply than we who write?" That is a trouble- 
some question, and in its very nature unanswerable, 
since the witnesses are dumb. No doubt they feel 
more simply and unquestioningly, for as soon as a 
thing is once said its opposite and contradictory side, 
as true and as necessary, reacts on us. But it seems 
to me that the expression does not so much depend 
on any spiritual insight, or even on especial training, 
as it does on the capacity for being frankly and simply 
one's self. That is the only thing necessary to make 
the humblest person interesting, and yet nothing is so 
difficult as to be one's self, in this wild whirling world. 

Expression is but another name for revelation. Un- 
less one is willing to expose one's self like Lady Go- 
diva, or protected only by such beauty and sincerity 
as hers, one can go but a little way in the direction of 



74 THE CASTE OF THE ARTICULATE 

individuality. We must sacrifice our vanity at every 
turn, show good and bad alike, and laugh at ourselves 
too. "Would that mine enemy might write a book!" 
is no insignificant curse, and yet there are tepid color- 
less authors who might hazard it with safety; no one 
would ever discover the element of personality. 

"After our quarrel I felt as if I had a pebble in my 
shoe all day," Little Sister once wrote me. Let that 
be an example of the articulate manner, for by such 
vivid and homely metaphors she strews her pages. 
Did she reserve such phrases for her written words, 
I would feel bound to claim for letter-writing the dis- 
tinction of being an art in itself, unrelated to any other 
faculty ; but no, she talks in the same way — she is her- 
self every moment. "My temper is violent and sudden, 
but it soon evaporates," she tells me, "like milk spilt 
on a hot stove." 

The inspiration that impels one so to illustrate an 
abstract statement with a concrete example, illuminat- 
ing and convincing, is a spark of the divine fire of per- 
sonality. This is the crux of the articulate caste. An 
ounce of illustration is worth a pound of proof. Rob 
poetry of metaphor and it would be but prose ; a simile, 
in verse, is usually merely ornament. The true pur- 
pose of tropes, however, is more virile and sustaining ; 



THE CASTE OF THE ARTICULATE 75 

they should reinforce logic, not decorate it. See how 
agilely Perilla can compress the whole history of a 
flirtation into six lines, defying the old saying that 
"there is nothing so difficult to relight as a dead love".: 

I thought I saw a stiffened form 

A-lying in its shroud; 
I looked again and saw it was 

The love we once avowed. 
"They told me you were dead !" I cried. 

The corpse sat up and bowed ! 

When one has a few such acquaintances as these, 
books are superfluous. Who would read a dead ro- 
mance when one can have it warm and living, vibrant, 
human, coming like instalments of a serial story, a 
perpetual revelation of character! Many pride them- 
selves on their proficiency in matter and many in man- 
ner — there are those, even, who boast of mere quan- 
tity ; and your professional letter-writer is usually cool 
and calm, if not afifected and pretentious. A letter, 
though, should be impregnate with living fire — it 
should boil. It is a treat of exceptional human nature. 
If the sentences be not spontaneous and unstudied the 
pleasure is lost. One may write fiery nonsense, but 
one must mean it at the time. One's mind must, as 
Sonia says, be hospitable, keep open house, and have 



76 THE CASTE OF THE ARTICULATE 

the knack of making one's friends at home, to throb 
with one's own delights and despairs. One must give 
every mood open-handed, and mention nothing one 
may not say outright with gusto. But it is not every 
one who can "bathe in rich, young feeling, and steep 
at day-dawning in green bedewed grasses" like my 
little Sonia. If I were dead she could still strike 
sparks out of me with her letters. 

"Oh, if you could only see my new hat ! I've been 
sitting in fetish worship half the evening, and I'll 
never dare tell how much I paid for it. You never 
need be good-looking under such a hat as that, for no 
one will ever see you !" Does not this quotation bring 
Little Sister very near to you, and make her very hu- 
man and real? Ah, Little Sister is not afraid to be 
herself ! She knows that she can do nothing better. 
"It's a terrible handy thing to have a smashing adjec- 
tive in your pocket," she confesses. Little Sister has 
a good aim, too; she always hits my heart. And yet 
she acknowledges that "there are days when letters 
are blankly impossible." 

Such friends write the kind of letters that one keeps 
always, the kind that can be re-read without skipping. 
It is their own talk, their own lives, their own selves 



THE CASTE OF THE ARTICULATE 77 

put up like fruit preserves of various flavors, moods 
and colors, warranted not to turn or spoil. 

And as for the gagged wordless folk, it is my opin- 
ion that too much sensibility has been accredited to 
them. To any rich exotic nature expression must 
come as a demand not to be refused. It is feeling bub- 
bling over into words. Other souls are compressed 
and silent; they have the possibilities of the bud — 
something warm and inspiring may at any time make 
them expand and free them from the constraint — but 
there is not much perfume until the flower blooms. 



THE TYRANNY OF THE LARES 

NO, I have never been tainted with a mania for 
collecting. It has never particularly interested 
me, when I already happened to have two of a kind, to 
possess a third. I prefer things to be different rather 
than alike, and the few treasures I really care for I 
like for themselves alone, and not because they are 
one of a family, set or series. 

But there are so few things to be envious of, even 
then ! After one's necessities are provided for, there 
are not many objects worth possessing, and fewer still 
worth the struggle of collecting. Acquisition seems 
to rob most things of their intrinsic value, of the ex- 
treme desirability they seemed to possess; and yet it 
does not follow that the practise of collecting is not 
worth while. It is worth while for itself, but not for 
the things collected. It is like hunting. The enjoy- 
ment, to your true sportsman, does not depend entirely 
on the game that is bagged. If the hunter went out 
solely for the purpose of obtaining food he would bet- 
ter go to the nearest poulterer. 

We have a habit of associating the idea of pleasure 

78 



THE TYRANNY OF THE LARES 79 

with the possession of certain objects, and we fancy 
such pleasure is permanent. But in nine cases out of 
ten the enjoyment is effervescent, and the thing must 
be gazed at, touched and admired while the charm is 
new. Then only can one feel the sharp joy of pos- 
session, and, even though its value remain as an object 
of art, we must after that enjoy it impersonally; its 
delight must be shared with other spectators. As far 
as the satisfaction of ownership is concerned the thing 
is dead for us, and though we would not give it up, 
our greed gilds it but cheaply, after all. 

Of all things, pictures are most commonly regarded 
as giving pleasure. A painting is universally accepted 
as a desirable possession of more or less value, accord- 
ing to personal appreciation. In fact, most men would 
say that a poor picture is better than none, since one 
of its recognized functions is to fill a space on the 
wall. And yet how few pictures are looked at once 
a day, or once a week. How many persons accept 
them only as decoration, as spots on the wall, and 
pass them by, in their familiarity, as unworthy of espe- 
cial notice ! One insults daily by his neglect the por- 
trait of a friend whom one would never "cut" on the 
street. 

But the collection of a multitude of things is no 



80 THE TYRANNY OF THE LARES 

great oppression if one is permanently installed; they 
pad out the comforts of life, they create "atmosphere" ; 
they fill up spaces in the house as small talk fills up 
spaces in conversation. The first prospect of moving, 
however, brings this horde of stupid, useless, dead 
things to life, and they appear in their proper guise 
to strike terror into the heart of the owner. Pictures 
that have never been regarded, curiosities that are only 
curious, books that no longer feed the brain, and the 
thousand little knickknacks that accumulate in one's 
domicile and multiply like parasites — all the flotsam 
and jetsam of housekeeping must be individually at- 
tended to, and rejected or preserved piecemeal. 

But that exciting decision ! It is not till one has 
actually had the courage to destroy some once prized 
possession that one feels the first inspiring thrill of 
emancipation. Before, the thing owned you ; it had 
to be protected in its useless life, kept intact with care 
and attention. You were pledged to forestall dust, 
rust and pillage. If you yourself selected it, it stood 
as a tangible evidence of your culture, an ornament 
endorsed as art. The thing forbade growth of taste 
or judgment, it became a changeless reproach. If it 
were a gift, it ruled you with a subtle tyranny, com- 
pelling your hypocrisy, enslaving you by chains of 



THE TYRANNY OF THE LARES 81 

your very good nature. But if you do not falter, in 
one exquisite pang you are freed. The Thing is de- 
stroyed ! Not given away, not hidden or disguised, 
but murdered outright. It is your sublime duty to 
yourself that demands the sacrifice. 

These horrid monsters once put out of your life, 
and all necessity for their care annulled, you have so 
much more space for the few things whose quality 
remains permanent. You will guard the entrance to 
your domicile and jealously examine the qualifications 
of every article admitted. You will ask : "Is it abso- 
lutely necessary?" If so, then let it be as beautiful 
as possible, putting into its perfection of design the 
expense and care formerly bestowed on a dozen trifles. 
You will use gold instead of silver, linen instead of 
cotton, ivory in the place of celluloid; in short, what- 
ever you use intimately and continually, whatever has 
a definite plausible excuse for existence, should be so 
beautiful that there is no need for objects which are 
merely ornamental. 

It was so before machinery made everything possible, 
common and cheap ; it has been so with every primitive 
civilization. To the unspoiled peasant, to all of sane 
and simple mind, ornaments have, in themselves, no 
reason for being. Pictures are unnecessary, because 



82 THE TYRANNY OF THE LARES 

the true craftsman so elaborates and develops the con- 
structive lines of his architecture that the decoration 
is organic and inherent. The many household utensils, 
vessels and implements of daily use were so appropri- 
ately formed, so graceful and elegant in their sim- 
plicity, so cunning of line, so quaint of form and pleas- 
ant of color, that they were objects of art, and there 
was no need for the extraneous display of meaning- 
less adornment. 

Once you are possessed with this idea you will sud- 
denly become aware of the tyranny of things, and you 
will begin to dread becoming a slave to mere posses- 
sions. You may still enjoy and admire the possessions 
of others, but the ineffable bore of ownership will keep 
you content. The responsibility of proprietorship will 
strike you with terror, gifts will appal you, the oppor- 
tunity of ridding yourself of one more unnecessary 
thing will be welcomed as another stroke for freedom. 
Your friends' houses will become your museums, and 
they the altruistic custodians, allowing you the unal- 
loyed sweets of appreciation with none of the bitter 
responsibilities of possession. 

For you, if you are of my kind, and would be free 
to fly light, flitting, gipsy fashion, wherever and when- 
ever the whim calls, must not be anchored to an estab- 



THE TYRANNY OF THE LARES 83 

lishment. We must know and love our few posses- 
sions as a father knows his children. We must be able 
to pack them all in one box and follow them foot- 
loose. This is the new order of Friars Minor, modern 
Paulists who have renounced the possession of things, 
and by that vow of disinheritance, parting with the 
paltry delights of monopoly, have been given the rov- 
ing privilege of the world ! 



COSTUME AND CUSTOM 

A FRIEND of mine has reduced his habit of dress 
. to a system. Dressing has long been known to 
be a fine art, but this enthusiast's endeavor has been 
to make it a science as well — to give his theories prac- 
tical application to the routine of daily life. To do this, 
he has given his coats and jackets all Anglo-Saxon 
names. His frock is called Albert, for instance, his 
morning coat Cedric, a gray tweed jacket, William, 
and so on. His waistcoats masquerade under more 
poetic pseudonyms. A white pique is known as Regi- 
nald, a spotted cashmere is Montmorency, and I have 
seen this eccentric in a wonderful plaid vest hight 
Roulhac. Family names distinguish his trousers 
and pantaloons. I need only mention such remark- 
able aliases as Braghampton, a striped cheviot gar- 
ment, and a pair of tennis flannels denominated Smith- 
ers. His terminology includes also appellations by 
which he describes his neckwear — simple prefixes, 
such as "de" or "von" or "Mac" or "Fitz," modifying 
the name of the waistcoat, and titles for his hats, 

84 



COSTUME AND CUSTOM 85 

varying from a simple "Sir" for a brown bowler to 
"Prince" for a silk topper of the season's block. 

Now, my mythical friend is not such a fool as you 
might think by this description of his mania, for he 
is moved to this fantastic procedure by a psychologi- 
cal theory. The gentleman is a private, if not a public, 
benefactor, the joy of his friends and delight of his 
whole acquaintance, for, never in the course of their 
experience, has he ever appeared twice in exactly the 
same costume. It may differ from some previous 
habilitation only by the tint of his gloves, but the 
change is there with its subtle suggestion of newness. 
Indeed, this sartorial dilettante prides himself, not so 
much on the fact that his raiment is never duplicated 
in combination, as that the changes are so slight as 
not to be noticed without careful analysis. His maxim 
is that clothes should not call attention to themselves 
either by their splendor or their variety, but that the 
effect should be on the emotions rather than on the 
eye. He holds that it should never be particularly 
noticed whether a man dresses much or dresses well, 
but that the impression should be of an immortal fresh- 
ness, sustaining the confidence of his friends that his 
garb shall have a pleasing note of composition. 

It is to accomplish this that he has adopted the 



86 COSTUME AND CUSTOM 

mnemonic system by which to remember his chang- 
ing combinations. He has but to say to his valet: 
"Muggins, this morning you may introduce Earl Ed- 
gar von Courtenay Blenkinsopp," and his man, famil- 
iar with the nomenclature of the wardrobe, will, after 
his master has been bathed, shaved and breakfasted, 
clothe the artist accordingly in Panama hat, sack coat, 
cheerful fawn waistcoat, a tender heliotrope scarf and 
pin-check trousers. Or perhaps, looking over the cal- 
endar, the man may announce that this fantastic Earl 
has already appeared at the club, in which case a 
manipulation of the tie or waistcoat changes von Court- 
enay to O'Anstruther. The Earl must not, according 
to the rules, appear twice in his full complement of 
costume. His existence is but for a day, but Anstru- 
ther, the merry corduroy vest, may become a part of 
many personalities. 

So much for my friend Rigamarole, who does, if 
you like, carry his principles to an extreme ; but surely 
we owe it to our friends that our clothes shall please. 
It is as necessary as that we should have clean faces 
and proper nails. But, more than this, we owe it to 
ourselves that we shall not be known by any hack- 
neyed, unvarying garb. It need not be taken for 



COSTUME AND CUSTOM 87 

granted that we shall wear brown or blue, we should 
not become identified with a special shape of collar. 
Servants must wear a prescribed livery, priests must 
always appear clad in the cloth of their office, and the 
soldier must be content with and proud of his uniform, 
but free men are not forced to inflict a permanent 
visual impression on their fellows. He must follow 
the habit and style of the day, be of his own class and 
period, and yet, besides, if he can, be himself always 
characteristic, while always presenting a novel aspect. 
It is as necessary for a man as for a woman, and, 
though the elements which he may combine are fewer, 
they are capable of a certain permutative effect. 

Our time is cursed more than any other has been, 
perhaps, with hard and fast rules for men's costume ; 
and of all clothing, evening dress, in which, in the old 
days, was granted the greatest freedom of choice, is 
now subject to the most rigid prescription. We must 
all appear like waiters at dinner, but daylight allows 
tiny licenses. Perhaps our garments are always dark- 
est just before dawn, and the new century may eman- 
cipate men's personal taste. So far, at least, we may 
go : a frock coat does not compel a tie of any particu- 
lar color, and a morning coat does not invariably for- 



88 COSTUME AND CUSTOM 

bid a certain subdued animation in the way of waist- 
coats. We may already choose between at least three 
styles of collar and yet be received at five o'clock, and 
colored shirts are winning a hard fight to oust the 
white linen that has reigned for more than half a 
hundred years. Even after dinner soft silk and linen 
shirts prophesy eventual emancipation. It takes no 
great wealth to take advantage of these minor oppor- 
tunities, nor need one be pronounced a fop if one uses 
one's chances well. He is safest who wears only what 
the best tailor has advised every other of his custom- 
ers, but who cares for a tailor's model? Who cares, 
I might add, to be safe? There is safety in numbers, 
but who ever remembers or cares for the victims of 
such commonplace discretion ? We are men, not mice ; 
why should our coats be all of the same fashionable 
hue and of the same length of tail? 

But the times are changing, and we may look for- 
ward with confident hope to the renascence of color. 
Already we may see the signs of the change that is 
approaching. God forbid that men should become the 
dandies of the Regency, that we should ever ape the 
incredible or go without pockets, but we may pray 
heartily for the wedding of Art and Reason. Let us 
pray we shall no more wear cylinders or cap our 



COSTUME AND CUSTOM 89 

skulls with tight-fitting boxes! Meanwhile, I fear I 
must buy another necktie, for my only one is well 
worn out. And Celestine swears she can recognize 
that blue serge suit of mine clear across the Park! 



OLD FRIENDS AND NEW 

OLD FRIENDS, we say, are best, when some sud- 
den disillusionment shakes our faith in a new 
comrade. So indeed they are, yet I count many newly- 
made ties as stronger than those of my youth. "Keep 
close and hold my hand; I am afraid, for an old friend 
is coming !" Celestine once whispered to me while our 
love was young. How well I understood her panic! 
She was swung by the conflicting emotions of loyalty 
and oppression ; her old friend had rights, but her new 
friend had privileges. With me, a stranger, she was 
frankly herself; with him, a familiar, she must be 
what he expected of her. 

How shall we arrange the order of precedence for 
the late and early comers into our hearts ? How shall 
we adjudicate their conflicting claims? That is the 
problem to be answered by every one who lives widely, 
and who would not have writ upon his gravestone: 
"He made more friends than he could keep!" Were 
one content to pass from flower to flower it would be 
easy enough, but rather would I gather a full, fra- 
grant and harmonious bouquet for my delight. 

90 



OLD FRIENDS AND NEW 91 

To one sensitively loyal, each new friend must at 
first sight seem to come as a thief, come to steal a 
fragment of his heart from its rightful owner. We 
say, "Make many acquaintances but few friends," we 
swear undying devotion, and we promise to write every 
week; but, if we practise this reserve, this fastidious 
partiality and exclusive attention, how shall we grow 
and increase in worth, and how shall the Brotherhood 
of Man be brought about? 

We may think that each friend has his own place 
and is unique, satisfying some especial part of our 
nature; each to be kept separate in his niche, the 
saint to whom we turn for sympathy in those matters 
wherein we have vowed him our confidences. We 
may satisfy our consciences by giving to each the same 
number of candles, and by a religious celebration of 
each Saint's day, keeping the calendar of our devo- 
tions independent and exclusive ; but this method does 
not make for growth. It is our duty to help knit 
society together, to modify extremes, to transmit and 
transform affection. Surely there is love enough for 
all, and the more we give the more we shall have to 
give to our friends, whether they be old or new. 

Friendship is, however, a matter of caste. With 
just as many as share our point of view or can under- 



92 OLD FRIENDS AND NEW 

stand it, who laugh at the things we laugh at, who are 
tempted by our temptations and sin our sins, can we 
have a divine fellowship. Through these to others 
outside of our ken, through friend to friend's friend 
the tie passes that shall bind the whole world together 
at last. 

Our set of friends is a solar system, a cluster of 
planets, that, revolving about us, moves with the same 
trend through space and time. Each member of the 
fraternity has its own aphelion and perihelion, occupa- 
tion and transit. Whether they are visible or invisible, 
we must be sure that each in due season will return to 
the same relative position and exert the same attrac- 
tion, answering the law of gravity that in true friend- 
ship keeps them in their orbits about us. But the 
circles interlace, and in that is the possibility of keep- 
ing the unity of our constellation of friends. Were 
the same comrades to accompany us unceasingly we 
could not develop. There must be an intricate com- 
plication of actions and reactions, and we must be 
affected by each in turn and in combination. 

What is a parting from a friend but a departure in 
quest of new experience? Each fresh meeting, there- 
fore, should be the sharing of the fruits that both have 
gathered, that each may profit by the contribution. If 



OLD FRIENDS AND NEW 93 

you tell me of a book you have read, I am amused and 
profited by the knowledge you bring me; shall I not 
be grateful to you for what you bring from an inter- 
esting person? If every new friend contributes to our 
development and enriches us by his personality, not 
only are we the better for it ourselves, but more worth 
while to one another. It is not you as you are whom 
I love best, but you as you shall be when, in due time, 
you have come to your perfect stature; wherefore I 
shall not begrudge the loan of you to those who have 
set you on the way. 

Though we may hold one friend paramount over all 
others, and admit him to every phase of intimacy, 
there are minor confidences that are often most pos- 
sible with an entire stranger. Were we to meet a man 
of the sixteenth century, what could we not tell such 
an impersonal questioner! What would we care for 
the little mortifications that come between even the 
best of friends? We could confess faults and embar- 
rassments without shame, we could share every hope 
and doubt without fear, for he would regard us with- 
out bias or prejudice. He could scourge us with no 
whip of conventional morality, and he would be able 
to judge any action of itself, hampered by no code or 
creed. 



94 OLD FRIENDS AND NEW 

We had a game once, my sister and I, in which we 
agreed to look at each other suddenly, newly, as if we 
had never met before. Frequently we were able to 
catch a novel phase of character, and our subconscious 
self, freed from the servitude of custom, bounded in a 
new emotion. Could we, in this way, at times regard 
our friends, how much we might learn ! We fall into 
the habit of seeing what we look for, and we compel 
old friends to live up to the preconception. Why not 
look at them, occasionally, as strangers to be studied 
and learned ? There are two variable quantities in the 
equation of friendship, Yourself and Myself. Our 
relation is never fixed; it is alive and changing from 
hour to hour. There is no such thing as an unalter- 
able friendship, for both parties to the affair are mov- 
ing at different speeds, first one and then the other 
ahead, giving a hand to be helped on and reaching 
back to assist. Might we not, indeed, reverse the pre- 
vious experiment and regard any stranger as a blood 
relative, assuming a fraternity of interest? We need 
only to be honest and kind. 

By these two processes we may keep old friends and 
make new ones ; and our conscience shall acquit us of 
disloyalty. When one enlarges one's establishment, 
one does not decrease either the wages or the duties 



OLD FRIENDS AND NEW 95 

of the servants before employed. The new members 
of the household have new functions. More is given 
and more is received. But it is not so much that one 
must give more as that one should give wisely and 
economically, we must be generous in quality rather 
than in quantity; for, though there is love enough to 
go round for all, there is not time enough for most of 
us. We must clasp hands, give the message and pass 
on, trusting to meet again on the journey, and come 
to the same inn at nightfall. 



A DEFENSE OF SLANG 

COULD Shakespeare come to Chicago and listen 
curiously to "the man in the street," he would 
find himself more at home than in London. In the 
mouths of messenger boys and clerks he would find the 
English language used with all the freedom of unex- 
pected metaphor and the plastic suggestive diction that 
was the privilege of the Elizabethan dramatists; he 
would say, no doubt, that he had found a nation of 
poets. There was hardly any such thing as slang in 
his day, for no graphic trope was too virile or uncom- 
mon for acceptance, if its meaning w r ere patent. His 
own heroes (and heroines, too, for Rosalind's talk was 
as forcible in figures of speech as any modern Ameri- 
can's) often spoke what corresponds to the slang of 
to-day. 

The word, indeed, needs precise definition before 
we condemn all unconventional talk with opprobrium. 
Slang has been called "poetry in the rough," and it is 
not all coarse or vulgar. There is a prosaic as well 
as a poetic license. The man in the street calls a 

96 



A DEFENSE OF SLANG 97 

charming girl, for instance, a "daisy" or a "peach." 
Surely this is not inelegant, and such a reference will 
be understood a century hence without a foot-note. 
Slang, to prove adjuvant to our speech, which is grow- 
ing more and more rigid and conventional, should be 
terse; it should make for force and clarity, without 
any sacrifice of beauty. Still, manner should befit mat- 
ter; the American "dude" was, perhaps, no more un- 
pleasant a word than the emasculated fop it described. 
The English "bounder" is too useful an appellation to 
do without in London, and, were that meretricious 
creature of pretense and fancy waistcoat more com- 
mon in the United States, the term would be welcomed 
to American slang with enthusiasm. New York, alas, 
has already produced "cads," but no Yankee school 
would ever tolerate a "fag." 

The mere substitution of a single synonymous term, 
however, is not characteristic of American slang. Your 
Chicago messenger boy coins metaphorical phrases 
with the facility of a primitive savage. A figure of 
speech once started and come into popular acceptance 
changes from day to day by paraphrase, and, as long 
as a trace of the original significance is apparent, the 
personal variation is comprehensible, not only to the 
masses, but generally to those whose purism eschews 



98 A DEFENSE OF SLANG 

the use of common talk. Thus, to give "the glassy 
eye" became the colloquial equivalent of receiving a 
cool reception. The man on the street, inventive and 
jocose, does not stop at this. At his caprice it becomes 
giving "the frozen face" or even "the marble heart." 
In the same way one may hear a garrulous person 
spoken of as "talking to beat the band," an obvious 
metaphor ; or, later, "to beat the cars." 

The only parallel to this in England is the "rhyming 
slang" of the costers, and the thieves' "patter." There 
a railway guard may be facetiously termed a "Christ- 
mas card," and then abbreviated to "card" alone, 
thence to permutations not easily traced. But the Eng- 
lish slang that is, for the most part, confined to the 
"masses," is an incomprehensible jargon to all else 
save those who make an especial study of the subject. 
One may sit behind a bus driver from the Bank to 
Fulham, and understand hardly a sentence of his col- 
loquies and gibes at the passing fraternity, .but though 
the language of the trolley conductor of Chicago is 
as racy and spirited, it needs less translation. The 
American will, it is true, be enigmatic at times; you 
must put two and two together. You must reduce his 
trope to its lowest terms, but common sense will sim- 
plify it. It is not an empirical, arbitrary wit depending 



A DEFENSE OF SLANG 99 

on a music-hall song for its origin. I was riding on a 
Broadway car one day when a semi-intoxicated indi- 
vidual got on, and muttered unintelligibly, "Put me off 
at Brphclwknd Street, please." I turned to the con- 
ductor and asked, "What did he want?" The official 
smiled. "You can search me !" he said, in denial of 
any possession of apprehension. 

Slang in America, then, is expression on trial ; if it 
fits a hitherto unfurnished want it achieves a certain 
acceptance. But it is a frothy compound, and the 
bubbles break when the necessity of the hour is past, 
so that much of it is evanescent. Some of the older 
inventions remain, such as "bunco" and "lynch" and 
"chestnut," but whole phrases lose their snap like un- 
corked champagne, though they give their stimulant 
at the proper timely moment. Like the eggs of the 
codfish, one survives and matures, while a million per- 
ish. The "observed of all observers" (Ophelia's deli- 
cate slang, observe) was, yesterday, in New York, "the 
main guy/' a term whose appositeness would be easily 
understood in London, where the fall of the Gunpow- 
der Plot is still celebrated. Later, in Chicago, accord- 
ing to George Ade, a modern authority, it became the 
"main squeeze," and further permutation rendered the 
phrase useless. It is this facility of change that makes 



100 A DEFENSE OF SLANG 

most slang spoil in crossing the Atlantic. On the other 
side, English slang is of so esoteric an origin and ref- 
erence, that no Yankee can translate or adopt it. It is 
drop-forged and rigid, an empiric use of words to ex- 
press humor. What Englishman, indeed, could trace 
the derivation of "balmy on the crumpet" as meaning 
what the American would term "dotty" or "bughouse," 
unless he was actually present at the music-hall where 
it was first invented? How account for the "nut?" 

We all have at least three native languages to learn 
— the colloquial, the literary prose, and the separate 
vocabulary of poetry. In America slang makes a 
fourth, and it has come to be that we feel it as incon- 
gruous to use slang on the printed page as it is to use 
"said he" or "she replied with a smile" in conversa- 
tion, and, except for a few poets, such words as 
"haply," "welkin," or "beauteous" in prose. Yet Ste- 
venson himself, the purist who avoids foreign words, 
uses Scotch which nearly approaches slang, for there 
is little difference between words of an unwritten dia- 
lect and slang, such as "scrannel" and "widdershins" ; 
while Wilkie Collins writes "wyte," "wanion," "kittle," 
"gar," and "collop" in with English sentences, as 
doubtless many questionable words of to-day will be 
honored in the future. 



A DEFENSE OF SLANG 101 

Slang, the illegitimate sister of Poetry, makes with 
her a common cause against the utilitarian economy 
of Prose. Both stand for lavish luxuriance in 
trope and involution, for floriation and adornment of 
thought. It is their boast to make two words grow 
where but one grew before. Both garb themselves in 
metaphor, and the only complaint of the captious can 
be that whereas Poetry follows the accepted style, 
Slang dresses her thought to suit herself in fantastic 
and bizarre caprices — that her whims are unstable and 
too often in bad taste. 

But this odium given to slang by superficial minds 
is undeserved. In other days, before the language was 
crystallized into the verbiage and idiom of the doc- 
trinaire, prose, too, was untrammeled. A cursory 
glance at the Elizabethan poets discloses a kinship 
with the rebellious fancies of our modern common col- 
loquial talk. For gargarism, scarab, quodling, puck- 
fist, scroyle, foist, pumpion, trindle-tale, comrogue, 
pigsbones and ding-dong, we may now read chump, 
scab, chaw, yap, fake, bloke, pal, bad-actor and so on. 
"She's a delicate dab-chick !" says Ben Jonson; "she 
had all the component parts of a peach," says George 
Ade. 

It will be seen that slang has two characteristics — 



102 A DEFENSE OF SLANG 

humor and force. Brevity is not always the soul of 
wit, for to-day we find amusement in the euphemisms 
that, in the sixteenth century, were taken in all seri- 
ousness. The circumlocutions w T ill drop speedily out 
of use, but the more apt and adequate neologisms tend 
to improve literary style. For every hundred times 
slang attributes a new meaning to an old word, it 
creates once or twice a new word for an old mean- 
ing. Many hybrids will grow, some flower and a few 
seed. So it is w r ith slang. 

There is a "gentleman's slang," as Thackeray said, 
and there is the impossible kind; but of the bulk of 
the American product, the worst to be said of it usu- 
ally is that it is homely and extravagant. None the 
less it is a picturesque element that spices the lan- 
guage with enthusiasm. It is antiseptic and prevents 
the decay of virility. Literary style is but an individ- 
ual, glorified slang. It is not impossible for the artist ; 
it went to its extreme in the abandon of Ben Jonson, 
Webster and Beaumont and Fletcher, but, as your 
Cockney would say, "It does take a bit of doin' " now- 
adays. 



THE 
CHARMS OF IMPERFECTION 

FOR a long time I held a stubborn belief that I 
should admire and aim at perfection. I admitted 
its impossibility, of course; I attributed my friends' 
failure to achieve it as a charming evidence of their 
humanity, but it seemed to me to be a thing most prop- 
erly to be desired. And yet, on thinking it over, I 
Was often astonished by the discovery that most of 
my delights were caused by a divergence from this 
ideal. "A sweete disorder in the dress kindleth in 
cloathes a wantonness !" 

Now, is this because I am naturally perverse, and 
enjoy the bizarre, the unique and the grotesque? Is 
it because of my frailty that I take a dear delight in 
signs of our common humanity, in the petty faults 
and foibles of the world? Or is it because I have 
misinterpreted this ideal of perfection, and have 
thought it necessary or proper to worship a conven- 
tional criterion ? Celestine and I have been puckering 
our brows for a week over the problem ! 

We have learned, after a quarter of a century's ex- 

103 



104 THE CHARMS OF IMPERFECTION 

perience with the turning lathe and fret saw, to turn 
back for lasting joy to hand-made work. We delight 
in the minor irregularities of a carving, for instance, 
recognizing that behind that slip of the tool there was 
a man at work; a man with a soul, striving for ex- 
pression. The dreary methodical uniformity of ma- 
chine-made decoration and furniture wearies our new 
enlightened taste. Mathematical accuracy and "spirit" 
seem to be mutually exclusive, and we have been 
taught by the modern Esthetic almost to regard ama- 
teurishness as a sure proof of sincerity. We can not 
associate the abandon and naif enthusiasm of the pre- 
Raphaelites with the technical proficiency of the later 
Renaissance, and Botticelli stands, not only for the 
spirit dominating and shining through the substance 
but, in a way, for the incompatibility of the perfect 
idealization with perfect execution. And yet this con- 
flict troubles us. We feel that the two should be 
wedded, so that the legitimate offspring might be per- 
fection; but when perfect technique is attained, as in 
a Japanese carving, the result is almost as devoid of 
human feeling and warmth as a machine-made product. 
We feel this instinctive choice of irregularity wher- 
ever we turn — wherever, that is, we have to do with 
humanity or human achievement. We do not, it is 



THE CHARMS OF IMPERFECTION 105 

true, delight in the flaw in the diamond, but elsewhere 
we are in perpetual conflict. with nature, whose sole 
object seems to be the obliteration of extremes and 
the ultimate establishment of a happy medium of uni- 
formity. We find perfection cold and lifeless in the 
human face. I doubt if a woman has ever been loved 
for an absolute regularity of feature; but how many, 
like little Celestine, who acknowledges herself that her 
nose is too crooked, her eyes too hazel and her mouth 
too large, are bewilderingly charming on that very ac- 
count ! These features go to make up an expression, 
which, if it is not perfect, is certainly not to be ac- 
counted for by merely adding up the items. It is a 
case where the whole is greater than the sum of all 
its parts. We admire the anatomy and poise of the 
Greek statues, but they are not humanly interesting. 
Indeed, they were never meant to be, for they are di- 
vinities, and the symbols of an inaccessible perfection. 
Still, while we speak of certain faults as being 
adorable (notably feminine weaknesses), while we 
make the trite remark anent a man's "one redeeming 
vice," while we shrink from natures too chaste, too 
aloof from human temptation, too uncompromising, 
yet we must feel a pang of conscience. We are not 
living up to our ideals. Is it the mere reaction from 



106 THE CHARMS OF IMPERFECTION 

the impositions of conventional morality ? I think not. 
It is a miscomprehension of the term perfection. 

The Buddhist believes in a process of spiritual evo- 
lution that, tending ever toward perfection, finally 
reaches the state of Nirvana, where the individual 
soul is merged into the Infinite. How can it be differ- 
entiated from the universal spirit if it has attained 
all the attributes of divinity? And that idea seems 
to be the basis of our mistaken worship of perfection 
— a Nirvana where each thing, being absolutely per- 
fect, loses every distinguishing mark of character. 
But is not our Christian, or even the Pagan ideal 
higher than this ? For even the Greek gods, cold and 
exquisite as they were, had each his individuality, his 
character, his separate function. Our conception of 
Heaven, if it is ever formulated nowadays, has this 
differentiation of individuality strongly accented ; 
though the most orthodox may insist that the spirits 
of the blessed are sanctified with perfection, yet he 
does not hold it as a necessary dogma that they are 
therefore all alike, and recast in a common mold. He 
still dares believe in that infinite variety which Nature 
has taught us persists throughout the universe. 

This is the fundamental difference between the Ori- 
ental and the Occidental point of view. We moderns 



THE CHARMS OF IMPERFECTION 107 

stand for the supremacy of character, an ineradicable 
distinction between human beings which evolution and 
growth does not diminish, but develops. We believe, 
you and I, that in a million eons we shall be as dif- 
ferent one from the other as we are now ; that faults 
may be eradicated, weaknesses lose their hold, but 
that our best parts will increase in virtue, not ap- 
proaching some theoretical standard, but always and 
forever nearing that standard which is set for our- 
selves. 

We have grown out of our admiration for the "cop- 
per-plate hand" in penmanship ; we recognize the fact 
now, that we need not so much follow the specimens 
in the copy-book as to make the best of what is dis- 
tinctive in our own style of writing. And this is a 
type of what our conception of perfection, perhaps, 
should be. Everything should be significant of char- 
acter, should supplement it, translate it, explain it. In 
the Japanese prints you will find almost every face 
with- the same meaningless expression, every feature 
calm, disguising every symptom of individuality. It 
is the Oriental pose, the Oriental ideal just mentioned. 
It is not considered proper to express either joy or 
sorrow, and the perfection of poise is a sublime in- 
difference. 



108 THE CHARMS OF IMPERFECTION 

And I have a final idea that may, to a more subtle 
student of Esthetic, seem suggestive. In the beauti- 
ful parabola described by the mounting and descend- 
ing sky-rocket the upward and downward path are 
never quite parallel. The stick does not drop vertically 
although it continually approaches that direction. In 
other words, the curve, constantly approaching a 
straight line, is beautiful despite, and, indeed, perhaps 
because it never quite attains that rectilinear perfec- 
tion and keeps its distinctive character to the end. It 
is beautiful in its whole progress, for that path defines 
the curve of the parabola. 



"THE PLAY'S THE THING" 



"T T TOULD you rather see a good play performed 
V V by poor actors, or a poor play done by good 
actors ?" asked Celestine. 

As a professor of the romantic view of life and a 
"ghost-seer," there is but one answer to the question. 
"The play's the thing !" Acting is at best a secondary 
art — an art, that is, of interpretation, though we as 
critics judge it of itself alone. But, to an idealist, 
no play ever is, or can be, perfectly performed. As 
we accept the conventions of stage carpentry, impos- 
sible skies, flat trees, "property" rocks, misfit costumes 
and tinsel ornament, so we must gloss over the im- 
perfections of the players, and accept their struttings 
and mouthings as the fantastic accessories of stage- 
land. No actor that ever lived ever acted through- 
out a whole drama as a sane human being would act. 
We are used to thinking the contrary, but the com- 
pression of time and space prevents verisimilitude. A 
play is not supposed to simulate life except by an es- 
tablished convention. Every art has its medium and 

109 



110 'THE PLAY'S THE THING" 

its limitation. It is indeed a limitation that makes 
art possible. In the drama the limitation is the use 
of the time element. 

The play's the thing — we may read it from the book 
or have it recited before the footlights, but the last- 
ing delight is the charm of plot that, with the frail 
assistance of the actor, finds its way to our emotions. 
A good play done by poor actors, then, for me, if I 
must choose between the two evils. 

Fancy creates; imagination constructs. The child, 
sporting ingenuously with both these powers, dwells 
in a world of his own, either induced by his master- 
ing fiat, or remodeled nearer to his heart's desire from 
the rags and fragments at hand. In his toy theater 
alone is the perfect play produced, for there imagina- 
tion is stage manager, and has the hosts of Wonder- 
land in the cast. The child is the only perfect romanti- 
cist. He has the keen fresh eye on nature ; all is play, 
and the critical faculty is not yet aroused. So in a 
way, too, was all primitive drama. The audience at 
Shakespearean plays heard but noble poesies, saw but 
a virile dream made partly visible, like a ghost beck- 
oning away their thoughts. So, even to-day, is the 
Chinese theater, with its hundreds of arbitrary con- 
ventions, its lack of scenery and its artificial eloquence. 



'THE PLAY'S THE THING" 111 

The veriest coolie knows that a painted face (a white 
nose, stripes and crosses on the cheeks) does but por- 
tray a masked intention, as if the actor bore a placard 
writ with the word "Villain." Forthwith, all the rest 
is faery. The player does but lightly guide the rein, 
and Pegasus soars free. 

So no play can be perfectly performed. We have 
created an artificial standard of realism, and we say 
that Bernhardt, Duse and Coquelin portray emotion 
with consummate art. It has been agreed by author- 
ities on Esthetic that simulated passion surpasses in 
suggestive power real emotion. The actor must not 
"lose himself in his part" — he must maintain the ob- 
jective relation. None the less, however, must we, as 
audience, supply imagination to extend the play from 
art to life. From a romantic point of view, such de- 
votion to realism is unnecessary. We are swayed by 
the wildest absurdities of melodrama, alike false to life 
and false to art, and we accept the operas of Wagner, 
with all their pasteboard dragons and bull-necked he- 
roes belching forth technique, as impressive stimuli 
to the imagination. Even through such crude means, 
uplifted either by passionate brotherhood or upon the 
wings of song, we are wafted far and fast. The play, 
oh ! the play's the thing ! 



112 'THE PLAY'S THE THING" 

For see! If you prefer the bad play performed 
by the good actors, why not go to life itself? What 
else, indeed, is life? It was the old Duke in Lewis 
Carroll's Silvie and Bruno who first pointed this 
out. All the world's a stage where are performed the 
worst of badly constructed plays — plays with neither 
unity nor sequence nor climax, but performed with 
absolute perfection. Why waste your time cursing the 
Adelphi, when, like the Duke, you can see the per- 
fect art of the street? The railway porter's dialect 
is still convincing. The fat woman with her scream- 
ing children may enter at any minute, with her touches 
of wonderful realism. If you go to the theater for 
acting you go to the wrong place! Watch the Pont 
Neuf for the despairing suicide, lurk in Whitechapel, 
visit in Mayfair, coquette with a Spaniard's sweet- 
heart, or rob a Jew, strike an Englishman, love an 
American girl, flirt with a French countess, or watch 
a Samoan beauty at the salt pools catching fish; but 
try not to find perfect acting behind a row of foot- 
lights ! 

But if, after all, the play's the thing, it is as much 
a mistake to look for real drama on the street. There 
everything is incomplete, and, for the satisfaction of 
our esthetic sense, we require the threads to be brought 



"THE PLAY'S THE THING'' 113 

together, and the pattern developed, the knots tied. 
Our contemplation of life is usually analytic; we de- 
light in discovering motives, elementary passions, traits 
of character and human nature. Our joy in art, on 
the other hand, arises from synthesis ; we love to see 
effect follow cause, and events march logically, pas- 
sions work themselves out, the triumph of virtue and 
justice. Life, as we see it, is a series of photographs. 
The drama presents these successively as in a biograph, 
with all the insignificant intermediary glimpses re- 
moved. We hunger for the finished story, the poem 
with the envoy. For this reason we have the drama 
and the novel. 

And now Celestine asks me, "Would you rather read 
a good story poorly written than a poor story well 
written ?" 

The question is as fair as the other, though not 
quite in the same case. We may agree that acting 
is a secondary art, but literature has more dignified 
claims to consideration. Here we are contemplating 
a wedding of two arts, not the employment of one 
by another. One might as well say, then, "Would 
you rather see a good man married to a bad woman 
or the reverse ?" It is the critic who attempts always 
to divorce the two. 



114 "THE PLAY'S THE THING" 

Yet, as in almost all marriage, where two arts work 
together one is usually the more important. You may- 
have your preferences, but the selection of that art 
which embodies an idea, rather than the one which 
aims at an interpretation, marks the romanticist's point 
of view. One art must be masculine, creative, and the 
other feminine and adorning. The glory of the one 
is strength, of the other beauty. For me, then, the 
manly choice. Give me the good story badly told, 
the fine song poorly sung, the virile design clumsily 
carved, rather than the opposite cases. The necessity 
of such a choice is not a mere whim of Celestine's; 
it is a problem we are forced to confront every day. 
We must take sides. It is not often, even from the 
Philistine's point of view, that we have the good thing 
well done, while the poor thing badly done we have 
everywhere. Between these limits of perfection and 
hopelessness, then, lies our every-day world of art, 
and there continually we must make our choice. 

If we could deal with abstractions, there would be 
no question at all, and undoubtedly we would all pre- 
fer to enjoy the disincarnate ideal rather than any in- 
complete embodiment, no matter how praiseworthy 
the presentment. But few of us are good enough 
musicians to hear the music in our mind's ear when 



"THE PLAY'S THE THING" 115 

we look over the score of an opera; few of us can 
dream whole romances like Dumas, without putting 
pen to paper; few, even, can long remember the 
blended glories of a sunset. We must have some tan- 
gible sign to lure back memory and imagination, and 
if we recognize the fact that such representations are 
symbols merely, conventions without intrinsic value 
as art, then we have the eyes of the child and the ro- 
mantic view of life. 

And lastly, Celestine leaned to me in her green ki- 
mono and said, "Would you rather see a pretty girl 
in an ugly gown, or an ugly girl in a pretty gown?" 
Ah, one does not need to hold the romantic view of 
life to answer that question ! 



LIVING ALONE 

I HAVE lived so long alone now, that it seems al- 
most as if there were two of me — one who goes 
out to see friends, transacts business and buys things, 
and one who returns, dons more comfortable raiment, 
lights a pipe and dreams. One the world knows, the 
other no one knows but the flies on the wall. 

I keep no pets, since these would enforce my keeping 
regular hours; the only familiars I have, therefore, 
are my clock, my fire and my candles, and how com- 
panionable these may become one does not know who 
does not live alone. They owe me the debt of life, 
and repay it each in its own way, faithfully and ap- 
parently willingly. I have a lamp, too; but a lamp 
is a dull thing, especially when half -filled, and this one 
bores me. I might count my typewriter, also, but she 
is too strenuous, and she makes me too impatient by 
her inability to spell. Besides, the clock, fire and can- 
dles may, with no great stretch of the imagination, be 
readily conceived to have volition, and, once started, 
they contribute not a little to relieving the tedium of 
living alone. 

116 



LIVING ALONE 117 

My clock is always the same; it has no surprises. 
It may go a bit fast or slow, but it has a maddeningly 
accurate conscience, and its fidelity in ringing the eight- 
o'clock alarm proves it inhuman. Still, it lives and 
moves, beating a sober accompaniment to my thoughts. 
Altogether, it is not unlike a faithful conscientious 
servant, never obtrusive, always punctual and obedi- 
ent, but with an unremitting devotion to orders that 
is at times exasperating. Many a man has stood in 
fear and shame of his valet, and so I look askance 
furtively with a suppressed curse when the hands point 
to my bath, my luncheon, or my sortie into town. It 
would be a relief, sometimes, if my clock stopped, were 
I not sure that it would be my fault. 

But my fire is more feminine, full of moods and 
whims, ardent, domestic and inspiring. Now a fire, 
like a woman, should be something more than beauti- 
ful, though in many houses the hearth is a mere ac- 
cessory. It should have other uses than to provide 
mere warmth, though this is often its sole reason for 
being. Nor should it be a mere culinary necessity, 
though I have known open fires to be kindled for that 
alone, and treated as domestic servants. In my house 
the fire has all these functions and more, for it is my 
friend and has consoled many lonely moments. It is 



118 LIVING ALONE 

a mistress, full of unexpected fancies and vagaries. 
It has, too, a more sacred quality, for it is an altar 
where I burn the incense of memory and sacrifice to 
the gods of the future. It is both human and divine, 
a tool and symbol at once. 

No one, I think, can know how much of all this a 
fire can be, who has not himself laid, lighted and kin- 
dled and coaxed it, who has not utilized its services 
and accepted its consolations. My fire is, however, 
often a jealous mistress. She warms me and makes 
my heart glad, but I dare not leave her side on a 
wintry day. I must keep well within bounds, hold her 
hand or be chilled. It is but little urging I need ! I 
pull up my couch, take pencil and paper, and she twin- 
kles and purrs by my side, casting flickering glances 
at me as I work. 

Not till the flames die down and the coals glow so- 
berly red do I find the more practical pleasures of 
friendship and housewifely service. Now my fire 
plays the part of cook, and, in her proper sphere, out- 
does every stove or range ever lighted. A little duck 
laid gently across the grate, the kettle whistling with 
steam, and the coffee-pot ready — what bachelor was 
ever attended by more charming handmaiden than I 
by my little open fire ? She will heat an iron or shay- 



LIVING ALONE 119 

ing- water as gracefully, too, waiting on me with a jo- 
cund willingness. No servant could be so companion- 
able. Still, she must be humored as one must always 
humor a woman. Try to drive her, or make her feel 
that she is but a slave, and you shall see how quickly 
she resents it. There is a psychological moment for 
broiling on an open fire, and postponement is fatal. 
It takes a world of petting and poking to soothe her 
caprice when she is in a blazing temper, but remember 
her sex, and she melts in a glow like a mollified child. 

Kindling and lighting my fire is a ritual. I can not 
go about it thoughtlessly or without excitement. The 
birth of the first curling flame inspires me, for the 
heart becomes an altar sacred to the household gods. 
If the day offers the least plausible pretext for a fire, 
I light one and sit down in worship. How I resent 
a warm morning, when economy struggles with de- 
sire ! Luckily my studio is at the north of the house, 
and, no matter if the sun is warm abroad, there is a 
cool corner waiting where a fire needs no apology. 
Toward noon the sun creeps in and puts out the flames, 
but all the morning I enjoy the blaze. 

In the evening the fire becomes absolutely necessary, 
and provides both heat and light, giving a new life 
of its own to the darkness of the room. Then I be- 



120 LIVING ALONE 

come a Parsee, put on my sacerdotal robes (for such 
lonely priestcraft requires costume), and fall into a 
reverie. For my sacrifices, old letters feed the flames. 
They say that coal, in burning, gives back the stored 
sunlight of past ages. What lost fires burn, then, when 
love-letters go up in smoke to illumine for one brief, 
last instant the shadows of memory ! 

My candles partake of the nature of both clock and 
fire. They are to be depended on, when let alone, to 
burn just six hours, marking the time like the ticking 
pendulum, but they give light and warmth, too, in their 
own way, in gentle imitation of the fire. They also 
have moods — less petulant than the fire's — but they 
require as little attention as the clock. The fire seems 
immortal ; though the coals fade into ashes, the morn- 
ing's resurrection seems to continue the same person- 
ality, and the same flames seem to be incarnated — 
living again the same old life. But the life of a candle 
seems visibly limited to a definite space of time, and 
its mortal end is clearly to be seen. In that aspect 
it seems more human and lovable than the fire — a can- 
dle is more like a petted animal, whose short life seems 
to lead to nothing beyond. We may put more coals 
on the fire, and continue its existence indefinitely, but 
the candle is doomed. Putting another one in the 



LIVING ALONE 121 

socket does not renew a previous existence. Fido is 
dead. But, if it is a short life, it is a merry one, and 
its service is glad and generous. My little army of 
candles is constantly being replenished. Like brave 
and loyal soldiers, they lay down their lives gallantly 
in my cause, and new ones fill up the vacant ranks, 
fighting the powers of darkness. 

This is my bachelor reverie. But high noon ap- 
proaches, and my metamorphosis is at hand. Now 
the sun has struck the fireplace with a lance of light, 
and I, that other I, must rise, dress and out into the 
world ! 



CARTOMANIA 

WITH something of the excitement Alice felt 
when she crawted through the looking-glass, I 
used to pore over my atlas. Geography was for me 
a pastime rather than a study. There was one page 
in the book where the huge bulging expanse of the 
United States lay, and there, on the extreme left hand 
of the vari-colored patchwork of states and territories, 
was the abode of romance and adventure — a long and 
narrow patch tinted pink, curving with the Pacific 
Ocean, and ribbed with the fuzzy haschures of the 
Sierra Nevada Mountains. This was the Ultima Thule 
of my dreams, beyond which my sober-minded hopes 
dared not stray. 

Further on in the book I saw Europe, irregular 
with ragged peninsulas and bays ; Asia, vast and shape- 
less, with the great blue stretch of Siberia atop, and 
the clumsy barren yellow triangle of Africa. But these 
foreign countries were, to my young imagination, as 
inaccessible as Fairyland ; they did not properly come 
into the world of possibility. They were as unreal as 

122 



CARTOMANIA 123 

ghosts, remote as the Feudal Ages, and I put them by 
with a sigh as hopeless. The world is a big place to 
the eyes of a child, and all beyond his ken but names. 
How could I know that the end of the century was 
even then whirling me toward wonders .that even 
my Arabian Magi would not have thought possible? 
But to-day, in this far western town, then but a semi- 
barbarous camp of gold miners, I have seen an air- 
ship half -completed upon the stocks, and this morning, 
in my own room, I rang up Celestine and talked with 
her over the wire a hundred miles away ! 

Maps were my favorite playgrounds, and so real 
were they that it almost seemed that, with a sufficiently 
powerful microscope, I might see the very inhabitants 
living their strangely costumed customs. There was 
a black dot on my fascinating pink patch marked San 
Francisco, and now, that dream come true, I try to 
see this city with the eyes of my childhood, and won- 
der that I am really here. To get the strangeness of 
the chance I have to think back and back till I see that 
map stretched out before the boy, and follow his finger 
across the tiers of states that run from the Atlantic 
to the Pacific. 

Every one who has not traveled much must feel the 
excitement that maps give when intently studied. No 



124 CARTOMANIA 

one has been everywhere, and for each some unvisited 
spot must charm him with its romantic possibilities. 
But there are certain cities almost universally enticing 
to the imagination — the world's great meeting-places, 
where, folk tell you, if one but waits long enough, one 
can find anybody. London, Cairo, Bombay, Hong- 
kong, San Francisco, New York — these are the jewels 
upon the girdle that surrounds the globe. To know 
these places is to have lived to the full limit of Anglo- 
Saxon privilege. 

But the true cartomaniac is not content with ready- 
made countries; he must build his own lands. How 
many kingdoms and empires have I not drawn from 
the tip of my pencil! Now, the achievement of a 
plausible state is not so easy as it might appear. There 
is nothing so difficult as to create, out of hand, an 
interesting coast line. Try and invent an irregular 
shore that shall be convincing, and you will see how 
much more cleverly Nature works than you. Here is 
where accident surpasses design. Spill a puddle of 
colored water on a sheet of paper and pound it with 
your fist, and lo, an outline is produced which you 
could not excel in a day's hard work with your pencil ! 

The establishment of a boundary line, too, requires 
much thought in order that your frontier interlocks 



CARTOMANIA 125 

well with your neighbor's. Your rivers must be well 
studied, your mountains planned, and your cities lo- 
cated according to the requirements of the game. You 
must name your places, you must calculate your dis- 
tances, and you must erase and correct many times 
before you can rival the picturesque possibilities of 
such a land as India, for instance, which, from the 
point of view of the sentimental cartographer, is one 
of the most interesting of states. 

If such an effort is too difficult for the beginner, 
one might begin with a country of which something 
is known, yet which never has been charted. Gulliver's 
Travels, for instance, contains information of many 
lands that should be drawn to scale. Lilliput, Brob- 
dignag, Laputa and the land of horses would alone 
make a very interesting atlas. The geography of 
Fairyland affords charming opportunities for the 
draftsman. For myself, I prefer the magical terri- 
tory of the Arthurian legends, and I have platted Sir 
Launcelot's Isle, with Joyous Gard at the northern 
end, high over the sea. There is a pleasaunce, a wood, 
a maze, and a wharf jutting out into a shallow smil- 
ing water, while the lists occupy a promontory to the 
south. 

Oh, the opportunities are many for the cartomaniac ! 



126 CARTOMANIA 

Who has mapped Utopia, Atlantis, Alice's Wonder- 
land, or the countries of the Faerie Queene? Who has 
reconstructed the plans of Troy ? And there are other 
allegorical lands, too, that should be mapped. I have 
had a try myself at the modern "Bohemia," and have 
taken the liberty of showing within its much-maligned 
borders Arcady and the Forest of Arden. I have even 
planned Millamours, the city of a thousand loves, and 
I am now attempting to draw a map of the State of 
Literature in the year 1902. 

There are many celebrated edifices, too, that might 
be trifled with. I have a friend, an architect, who 
has completed the Castle of Zenda, and he is now 
occupied with Circe's palace, with a fine eye to the 
decorative effect of the pig-pens. Think of laying out 
the gardens, grottoes and palaces of the Arabian 
Nights ! Why has the Castle of Otranto been neg- 
lected — and Udolpho, and Castle Dangerous, and the 
Moated Grange? 

Many novelists, and, I think, most writers of pure 
romance, have played this game. Stevenson, dream- 
ing in his father's office, drew the map of Treasure 
Island, and from that chart came forth, hint by hint, 
the suggestions for his masterpiece. Maurice Hewlett 
drew a plat of the ancient marches and forests where 



CARTOMANIA 127 

the Forest Lovers wandered, and it is a pity he did 
not publish it in more detail. This is one of the graph- 
ical solutions of story-writing, a queer anomalous 
method whereby the symbol suggests the concept. 

The cheaper magazines often use old cuts, and re- 
quest some hack to write a story to fit the illustration. 
But the map is an abstraction ; its revelations are cab- 
alistic, not definite. A good map is a stage set for 
romantic fiction, ready for anybody who can write or 
dream the play. 



THE SCIENCE OF FLATTERY 

TIME was when people were less sophisticated 
and almost everybody could be flattered. A com- 
pliment w T as the pinch of salt that could be placed 
upon any bird's tail. But such game is scarcer now, 
and to capture one's quarry one has to practise all 
the arts of modern social warfare. We have, for in- 
stance, been taught to believe, time out of mind, that 
women are especially susceptible to this saccharine 
process; that one had but to make a pretty speech, 
and her conquest was assured. But what lady now- 
adays can take a compliment without bridling? It is 
as much as a man's reputation is worth to make a 
plain straightforward statement of approbation. He 
must veil his meaning so that it can be discovered only 
by a roundabout reflection. Whether it be true or 
not, he is held offensively responsible for the blush 
with which it is received. 

So, to be successful, one must be politic and tactful ; 
one must adopt the indirect method, and, above all, 
one must escape the obvious. To say what has been 

128 



THE SCIENCE OF FLATTERY 129 

said many times before defeats the very purpose, 
whether it be good or evil, for which we flatter. The 
artist discards the hackneyed compliment, and endeav- 
ors to place his arrow in a spot that has never been 
hit. He will compliment a poet on his drawings and 
a painter on his verses. If a woman, ordinarily plainly 
dressed, has a single effective garment, does he com- 
pliment her on that particular costume ? By no means. 
Subtlety demands that he flatter her by pointing out 
some interesting feature in one of her common frocks, 
without hinting that it is surprising to see her partic- 
ularly well clad. Such compliments have the flavor 
of novelty, and are treasured up by the recipient, to 
be quoted long after the donor has forgotten them. 

The tribute of unexpected praise is more grateful 
to a person than the reward for which he works hard- 
est and is most confident. It discovers to him new and 
pleasing attributes. It has all the zest and relish that 
the particular always has more than the general. And, 
besides, for the person who happens to light on some 
little favorite trick of individuality, and to notice and 
to comment on it, the reward is great. Such a flat- 
terer is, in the heart of the flattered one, throned with 
the authority of discernment ; he is considered forever 
after as a critic of the first importance. Every one 



130 THE SCIENCE OF FLATTERY 

has a hobby, an idiosyncrasy, visible or invisible; it 
is the art of the flatterer to discover it, and his science 
to use it to his own ends. 

Flattery is, however, an edged tool, and must be 
used with care. It is not every one who has the tact 
to decide at a glance just how much his victim will 
stand. He may know enough, perhaps, to praise the 
author of a successul book for some other one of his 
works which has not attained a popular vogue; he 
may have the discretion to banter men about their 
success with the opposite sex, and to accuse women 
of cleverness ; but for all that he may often misjudge 
his object, and give embarrassment if not actual af- 
front. For all such the safest weapon is the written 
word. 

This is the ambush from which your prey can not 
escape. If a letter of praise, of compliment, or even 
of deliberate flattery, is made decently interesting, if 
it is not too grossly cloying even for private perusal, 
it can not fail to count. It has to be paid for by no 
blush, no awkward moment, no painful conspicuous 
self-consciousness, no hypocritical denial. Striking an 
undefending victim, it brings him down without a 
struggle. Such tributes of praise can be read and 
reread without mortification. It is a sweet-smelling 



THE SCIENCE OF FLATTERY 131 

incense that burns perpetually before the shrine of 
vanity. One compliment written down in black and 
white is worth any number of spoken words, and the 
trouble that has been taken to commit such praise to 
paper gives the offering an added interest and im- 
portance. Anything that can be said can be written, 
from the eulogy of a lady's slipper to the appreciation 
of a solo on the harp. You may be sure that any 
unconventionality of manner will be atoned for by the 
seduction of a honeyed manner. Stevenson, in his 
playful Decalogue for Gentlemen, set down as his 
first canon, "Thou shalt not write an anonymous let- 
ter," but it can not be doubted that he would have ex- 
cepted an unsigned note of admiration. 

The element of time in flattery, too, is often dis- 
regarded. Few would-be flatterers understand the in- 
creased influence of a compliment deferred. It is 
again the same case of the misuse of the obvious. 
When your friend's book appears, or his picture is 
displayed, there are enough to compliment him on the 
spot, but your own sympathetic endorsement, delayed 
a few months, or even iterated, comes to him when 
he is least expecting the compliment. He is off his 
guard, and the shot goes home. When I give Celestine 
a present she thanks me immediately, of course, but 



132 THE SCIENCE OF FLATTERY 

that is not the last of it. In every third letter or so 
I am reminded of her gratitude and my kindness. 

There is, however, a flattery of manner as well as 
one of matter. Celestine, to whose wise counsels I 
am indebted for many a short cut in the making of 
friends, once laid down for me the following rules for 
dealing with women : 

First, be intellectual with pretty women. 

Second, be frivolous with intellectual women. 

Third, be serious and empresse with young girls. 

Fourth, be saucy and impudent with old ladies. Call 
them by their first names, if necessary. 

It goes without saying that such audacious methods 
require boldness and sureness of touch, especially in 
the application of the fourth rule. But even that, 
when attempted with spirit and assurance, has given 
miraculous results. In a case where a woman's age 
is in question, action speaks far louder than words. 

Perhaps the most successful method of flattery is 
that of the person who makes the fewest compliments. 
To gain a name for bruskness and frankness is, in a 
way, to attain a reputation for sincerity. Whether this 
is just or not, it is undoubtedly true that the occasional 
unlooked-for praise of such a person acquires an ex- 
aggerated importance and worth. This system is sim- 



THE SCIENCE OF FLATTERY 133 

ilar to that of the billiard-player who goes through 
the first half of his game wretchedly in order to sur- 
prise his opponent with the dexterity of his shots later 
on. But it is an amateurish ruse, and is soon dis- 
covered and discounted at its true value. Yet in a 
way, too, it is justifiable, since unpleasant comments 
are usually accepted as candid, while pleasant ones 
alone are suspected. 

There is a kind of conscious vanity to which flattery 
comes welcomely, however patent the hyperboles may 
appear. To such persons, and they are many, a cer- 
tain amount of adulation oils the mental machine. 
They do not believe all that is said, but prefer, on 
the whole, to be surrounded by pleasant fictions rather 
than by unpleasant facts. They prefer harmony to 
honesty, and, though the oil on the troubled waters 
of life does not dispel the storm, it makes easier sail- 
ing. To others, especially if they be creators in any 
art, compliments stimulate and impel to their best en- 
deavor. Many a man has achieved a masterpiece 
chiefly because, though he disbelieved, a woman de- 
clared him capable of it. 

The question of the object for v/hich flattery is 
employed is beside the mark. It may be used or mis- 
used ; it may be true or false of itself, although, to be 



134 THE SCIENCE OF FLATTERY 

sure, the word flattery has attained an evil significance 
and has come to stand for counterfeit approval. All 
that has been said, however, applies to one as well as 
to the other. Even when praise has the least founda- 
tion in fact, it may prove beneficial to the person flat- 
tered, arousing a pride which creates the admired qual- 
ity that was wholly lacking. Thus I have known a 
man notorious for his vulgarity stimulated to a very 
creditable politeness by the most undeserved and insin- 
cere compliment on his table manners. 

I have used the three testimonials of admiration as 
synonymous, but Celestine says that praise is a right- 
ful fee, a compliment is a tip, and that flattery is 
bribery. 



ROMANCE EN ROUTE 

HOW tired I am of the question, "How do you 
like London?" and "How do you like New 
York?" "Would you rather live in San Francisco or 
Paris ?" Why, indeed, should I not like London, Kala- 
mazoo, Patagonia, Bombay, or any other place where 
live men and women walk the streets, eat, drink and are 
merry? How can I say whether El Dorado is better 
than Arcady, or a square room more convenient than 
an oblong one ? Every living place has its own fascina- 
tion, its mysteries, its characteristic delights. Ask me, 
rather, if I can understand London, if I can catch the 
point of view of the French concierge, if I compre- 
hend the slang and bustle of Chicago? Like them? 
Show me the town I can not like ! Know them ? Ah, 
that is different! 

This is the charm of travel — to keep up the feeling 
of strangeness to the end, never to take things for 
granted or let them grow stale, to see them always as 
though one had never seen them before. Then, and 
only then, can we see things as they really are. When 

135 



136 ROMANCE EN ROUTE 

I become cosmopolitan, world-old, blase, when I think 
and speak in all languages, I shall fly to some deserted 
island to study the last, most impenetrable enigma — 
myself. 

But meanwhile, I can purchase romance retail, at 
the mere cost of a railway ticket. I can close my eyes 
in one city, and wake next morning in its mental anti- 
pode. Romance requires only a new point of view ; it 
is the art of getting fresh glimpses of the common- 
place. One need not be transported to the days of 
chivalry, one need not even travel; one need only be- 
gin life anew every morning, and look out upon the 
world unfamiliarly as the child. does. One must be 
born a discoverer. Thus one may keep youth, for the 
sport never loses color. One game won or lost, the 
next has an equal interest, though we use the same 
counters and the same board. The combinations are 
always fresh. 

Still, though one may find this fountain of perpetual 
youth in one's breakfast glass, the obvious conven- 
tional method is to go forth for the adventure, and 
get this famed elixir at some foreign and well-adver- 
tised spring. For this purpose tourists travel, taking 
part in a pilgrimage of whose meaning and proper 



ROMANCE EN ROUTE 137 

method they are wholly ignorant. In their boxes and 
portmanteaus they pack, not hopes of mystery, faith 
in the compelling marvels of the world, nor the won- 
der of strange sights; but instead, fault-finding com- 
parisons, and prejudice against all manners not their 
own. They do not see, in the London tram, the taxi 
of Paris, the electric trolley of New York and the 
cable car of San Francisco, the pregnant evidence of 
several points of view on life, art and commerce, but 
they perceive only grotesque contrasts with their own 
particular means of locomotion. They do not delight 
in the incomprehensible hurly-burly of civilization that 
has produced the City Man, the Bounder, the Coster, 
the Hoodlum, Hooligan and Sundowner, nor do they 
attempt to solve the mystery or get the meat from such 
strange shells. Instead, they see only the clerk at the 
lunch-counter bolting his chops and half -pint, the in- 
credible waistcoat of the pretentious blagueur, or the 
buttons and "moke" of the ruffling D'Artagnan of the 
Old Kent-road. 

So the tourist travels with his eyes shut, while the 
true traveler has a lookout on life, keen for new sen- 
sations. To do things in Rome as the Romans do, 
that is his motto. He must eat full-length spaghetti, 



138 ROMANCE EN ROUTE 

his rice and chopped suey with chop-sticks, or he fails 
of their subtle relish. He calls no western town crude 
or uncivilized, but he tries to cultivate a taste for cock- 
tails, that he may imbibe the native fire of occidental 
enthusiasm. In the East he is an Oriental ; he changes 
his mind, his costume and his spectacles wherever he 
goes, and underneath the little peculiarities of custom 
and environment, he finds the essential realities of 
life. 

To taste all this fine crisp flavor of living — not to 
write about it or fit it to sociological theories, but to 
live it, understand it, be it — this is the art of travel, 
the art of romance, the art of youth. But there is no 
Baedeker to guide such a sentimental tourist through 
such experiences as these. It takes a lively glance to 
recognize a man disguised in a frock coat and to find 
him blood brother to the Esquimau ! 

Well, there is a place in Utah on the Central Pacific 
Railroad called Monotony. The settlement consists 
of a station, a water-tank, and a corrugated iron bunk- 
house. The level horizon swings round a full circle, 
enclosing a flat arid waste, bisected by an unfenced 
line of rails, straight as a stretched string. The popu- 
lation consists of a telegraph operator, a foreman and 
six section hands. Yet I dare say I could stay there 



ROMANCE EN ROUTE 139 

a while, on the way, and perhaps taste some charm that 
London never gave. I am not so sure that but that 
before I took wing again I might not like it, in some 
respects, better even than Paris. 



THE EDGE OF THE WORLD 

TO FIND the colonial or the provincial more cul- 
tured, better educated in life and keenlier cog- 
nizant of the world's progress than the ordinary metro- 
politan, is a common enough paradox. Class for class, 
the outlander has more energy, greater sapience and a 
truer zest of intellect than the citizen at the capital. 
By the outlander is not meant, however, the mere 
suburban or rural inhabitant, but the dweller at the 
outpost of civilization, the picket on the edge of the 
world. 

Let us grant that, in the gross, every new com- 
munity must be crude. It takes time to grow ivy over 
the walls, to soften the primary colors into harmonious 
tones, to smooth off the rough edges — but let us also 
grant that, at all the back doorways of empire, in far- 
away corners of the earth, are assembled little co- 
teries of men and women who, by reason of their very 
isolation, rather than despite it, have made themselves 
cosmopolitan, catholic, eclectic, and stand ever ready 
to welcome, each in his own polite dialect and idiom, 

140 



THE EDGE OF THE WORLD 141 

the astonished traveler who thinks he has left all that 
is great and good behind. 

This compensation is, indeed, a natural law. If we 
cut back half the shoots of a shrub, the surviving 
sprouts will be more vigorous. The deprivation of 
one sense renders the others more acute. Make it hard 
for an ambitious lad to obtain an education, and, work- 
ing alone by candle-light, he will outstrip the student 
with greater advantages. So it is with the colonial 
who realizes his poverty of artistic and intellectual re- 
sources. He must, in self-defense and to compensate 
for his isolation, make friends with the world at large, 
and his mental vision, accustomed to long ranges of 
sight, becomes sharp and subtle. To avoid the re- 
proach of provincialism he studies the great centers 
of thought and watches eagerly for the first signs of 
new growths in fads, fashions, art and politics. It is 
for this reason that the British colonial is more British 
than the Englishman at home. 

Plunged in the midst of the turmoil of every-day 
excitements, the dwellers in great cities lose much of 
the true and fine significance of things. A thousand 
enterprises are beginning, and amid a myriad essays 
the headway of yesterday's novelty is lost in the strug- 
gle of to-day's agonists. The little, temporary, local 



142 THE EDGE OF THE WORLD 

success seems big with import, and the slower devel- 
opment of more serious and permanent virtues is ig- 
nored. Things are seen so closely that they are out 
of true proportion, and they are seen through media 
of personality that diffract and magnify. 

But the provincial, far from this complicated aspect 
of intellectual life, gains greatly in perspective. Sep- 
arated by great space, he is, in a way, separated by 
time also, and he sees what another generation will 
perhaps see in the history of to-day. For he watches 
not only literary London, that littlest and most garru- 
lous of gossiping villages, but a dozen other hives of 
thought as well, and from his very distance can the 
more easily discern the first signs of preeminence. His 
ears are not ringing with a myriad petty clamors, but 
he can hear, rising above the multitudinous hum, the 
voice of those who sing most clearly. 

The connoisseur in art views a painting from across 
the hall — the lover of music does not sit too close to 
the orchestra — and so the intelligent looker-on at life 
does not come too often in familiar touch with the 
aspirants for fame. Living, as one might say, upon 
a hill, the stranger thus gets the range, volume and 
trend of human activities, and sees their movements, 
like those of armies marching below him, though they 



THE EDGE OF THE WORLD 143 

seem as ants, so far away. He can trace the direction 
of waves of emotion that follow round the earth like 
tides of the sea. 

In every community, however small or remote, there 
are a few who delight in this comprehensive view of 
things, who keep up with the times, and, as far as 
their immediate neighbors are concerned, are ahead of 
the prevailing mode. As the meteorologist, studying 
the reports from North, South, East and West, can 
trace the progress of storm and wind, so these intelli- 
gent observers can predict what will be talked about 
next, and how soon the first murmurs will reach their 
shores. Their cosmic laboratory is the club library 
table, with its journals and periodicals from all over 
the world. 

The first hint of a new success in literature comes 
from the London weeklies, and then, if the British 
opinion is corroborated by American favor, the New 
York papers take up the note of praise, and one may 
follow the progress of a novel's triumph across three 
thousand five hundred miles of continent, or see the 
word pass from colony to colony, over the whole em- 
pire. The Londoner sees but the bubbles at the spring 
— the pioneer by the Pacific watches the course of a 
mighty stream increasing in depth and width. To- 



144 THE EDGE OF THE WORLD 

morrow, or in three months, the vogue will reach his 
own town, and he will smile to see all tongues wag of 
the latest literary success. 

So it is with art, so with fashions, with the drama 
and with every fad and foible, from golf and Bahiism 
and Eurythmics to the last song and catchword of the 
music halls. The colonial is behind the times ? What 
does it matter ! Are we not all behind the times of 
to-morrow? So long as we can not travel faster than 
the news, it makes little difference; and it is wise, 
when we are in San Francisco, to do as the Francis- 
cans do. It is as bad to be ahead of the times as to 
be behind, and it is best to follow the style of one's 
own locality, with a shrewd eye to one's purchases 
for the future, buying what we can see must come into 
popular favor. 

But does your metropolitan enjoy this complexity, 
this living in the future ? Not he ! He cares nothing 
for the vieux jeii. For him, ping-pong is dead or dy- 
ing — he neither knows nor cares that it still lives in 
the Occident, marching in glory ever toward the West, 
along the old trail to fame. Of the last six successful 
books discussed over his muffins, does he know which 
have been virile enough to survive transplanting to 
other shores — which have emigrated and become natu- 



THE EDGE OF THE WORLD 145 

ralized in the colonies ? No ! He is for the next little 
victory at the tea tables of the elect ! 

And yet, this afterglow, this invasion and conquest 
of new territory is what brings enduring fame. Be- 
fore the city election is substantiated, the country must 
be heard from. The urban hears the solo voices of 
adulation, the worship of those near and dear to celeb- 
rity, but the great chorus that sweeps the hero up to 
Parnassus comes from a wider stage. The army of 
invasion never comes home again to be hailed as victor 
until it has encircled the globe. But it is this greater 
conquest that the dweller at the outpost sees, at first 
like a cloud no bigger than a man's hand, and it is his 
game to watch and await it. 

It is better so. Waste no pity on him at the edge 
of the world. For the big game needs big men, and 
it is the boldest and most strenuous spirits who push 
to Ultima Thule. The anemic and neurotic do not 
emigrate; the reddest blood has flowed in the veins 
of the pioneer ever since the first migration. He does 
things, rather than talks of things others have done — 
he knows life, even if he knows not Ibsen. Meet him 
in his far-away home, and he holds your interest with 
an unlooked-for charm; take him to the Elgin marbles 
and he will have and hold his own idea of art unbor- 



146 THE EDGE OF THE WORLD 

rowed from text-books. He knows more of your city's 
history than you do yourself ; panic or the furor of a 
fashion can not hypnotize him. The importance of a 
celebrated name can not embarrass him, for he has 
met men unknown to fame who have lived as un- 
crowned kings. He has seen cities rise from the plain. 
He has made the wilderness to blossom like the rose ; 
he has lived, not written epics. 

And in addition to gaining all this experience that 
trained the pioneers of old, he has, while living at the 
confines of civilization, kept in touch with the world, 
and has tasted the exhilarating flavor of the old and 
new in one mouthful. For, in this century, distance 
is swept away and no land is really isolate. The pio- 
neer lives like a god above distinctions of time, at once 
in the past, the present and the future. 



THE DIARY HABIT 

FOR seven years I have kept my diary scrupulously, 
without missing a day, and now, at the beginning 
of a new twelvemonth, I am wondering whether I 
should maintain or renounce it. There are certain 
good habits, it would seem, as hard to break as bad 
ones, and if the practise of keeping a daily journal is 
a praiseworthy one, it derives no little of its virtue 
from sheer inertia. The half -filled book tempts one 
on; there is a pleasure in seeing the progress of the 
volume, leaf by leaf ; like sentimental misers, we hoard 
our store of memories. We end each day with a def- 
inite statement of fact or fancy, and it grows harder 
and harder to abstain from the self-enforced duty. 
Yet it is seldom a pleasure, when one is fatigued with 
excitement or work, to transmit our affairs to writing. 
Some, it is true, love it for its own sake, or as a relief 
for pent-up emotions, but, in one way or another, most 
autobiographical journalists consider the occupation 
as a prudent depositor regards his frugal savings in 
the bank. Some time, somehow, they think, these 
coined memories will prove useful. 

147 



148 THE DIARY HABIT 

Does this time ever come, I wonder? For me it has 
not yet arrived, though still I picture a late reflective 
age when I shall enjoy recalling the past, and live 
again my old sensations. But life is more strenuous 
than of yore, and even at seventy or eighty, nowadays, 
no one need consider himself too old for a fresh, active 
interest in the world about him. Your old gentleman 
of to-day does not sit in his corner of the fireplace 
and dote over the lost years; he reads the morning 
papers, plays golf and insists on going to the theater 
with his nieces on wet evenings. Have I, then, been 
laying up honey for a winter of discontent that shall 
never come ? 

Besides this distrust of my diaries, I am awakening 
after seven years to the fact that, as autobiography, 
the books are strangely lacking in interest. They are 
not convincing. I thought, as I did my clerkly task, 
that I should always be I, but a cursory glance at these 
naif pages shows that they were written by a thousand 
different persons, no one of whom speaks the lan- 
guage of the emotions as I know it to-day. It is true, 
then ; my diary has convinced me that we do become 
different persons every seven years. Here is written 
down rage, hate, delight, affection and yearning, no 
word of which is comprehensible to me now; they 



THE DIARY HABIT 149 

leave me quite cold. I am reading the adventures of 
some one else, not my own. Who was it ? I have for- 
gotten the dialect of my youth. Ah, indeed, the boy 
is father of the man! I will be indulgent, as a son 
should, to paternal indiscretions ! 

And yet, for the bare skeleton of my history, these 
volumes are useful enough. The pages which, while 
still wet with ink and tears I considered lyric essays, 
have fallen to a merely utilitarian value. I am thank- 
ful, on that account, for them, and for the fact that 
my bookkeeping was well systematized and indexed. 
As outward form goes, my diaries are models of man- 
ner. So for those still under the old-fashioned spell, 
who would adopt a plan of entry, let me describe them. 

The especial event of each day, if the day held any- 
thing worthy of remark or remembrance, was boldly 
noted at the top of the page over the date. Whir- 
ring the leaves I catch many suggestive phrases : "Din- 
ner at Mme. Qui Vive's" (it was there I first tasted 
champagne), "Henry Irving in 'Macbeth' " (but it was 
not the actor that made that night famous — I took Kitty 
Carmine home in a hansom!), "Broke my arm" (or 
else I would never have read Marlowe, I fear), and 
"Met Sally Reynard" (this was an event, it seemed at 
that time, worthy of being chronicled in red ink — I 



150 THE DIARY HABIT 

wonder why!) So they go. They are the chapter 
headings in the book of my life. 

In the lower left-hand corner of each page I noted 
the receipt of letters, the initials of the writers in- 
scribed in little squares, and in the opposite right-hand 
corner a complementary hieroglyph kept account of 
every reply sent. So, by running over the pages I can 
note the fury of my correspondence. (What an indus- 
trious scribbler "S. R." was to be sure! I had not 
thought we went it quite so hard — and "K. C." — how 
often she appears in the lower left, and how seldom 
in the lower right! I was a brute, no doubt, so to 
neglect her, and small wonder she married Fleming- 
way !) 

Perpendicularly, along the inner margin, I wrote the 
names of those to whom I had been introduced on 
that day, and on a back page I kept a chronological 
list of the same. (I met Kitty, it seems, on a Friday 
— perhaps that accounts for our not hitting it off!) 
Most of these are names, and nothing more, now, and 
it gives my heart a leap to come across Celestine in 
that list of nonentities. (To think that there was ever 
a time when I did not know her!) 

Besides all this, the books are extra-illustrated in the 
most significant manner. There is hardly a page that 



THE DIARY HABIT 151 

does not contain some trifling memento ; here, a theater 
coupon pasted in, or a clipping from the program, an 
engraved card or a penciled note; there a scrap of a 
photograph worn out in my pocketbook, somebody's 
sketched profile, or, at rare intervals, a wisp of some 
one's hair. (This reddish curl — was it Kitty's or from 
Dora's brow ? Oh, I remember, it was Myrtle gave it 
me! No, I am wrong; I stole it from Nettie!) I 
pasted them in with eager trembling fingers, but I 
regard them now without a tremor. There are other 
pages being filled which interest me more. 

Occasionally I open a book, 1895 perhaps, and con- 
sult a date to be sure that Millicent's birthday is on 
November 12, or to determine just who was at Kitty's 
coming-out dinner. Here is a diagram of the table 
with the places of all the guests named. (So I sat 
beside Nora, did I? And who was Nora? I have 
forgotten her name! Now she is Mrs. Alfred For- 
tunatus !) 

Sometimes I think it would be better to write up 
my diary in advance, to fill in the year's pages with 
what I would like to do, and attempt to live up to the 
prophecy. And yet I have had too many unforeseen 
pleasures in my life for that. I would rather trust 
fate than imagination. So, chiefly because I have kept 



152 THE DIARY HABIT 

the book for seven years, I shall probably keep it seven 
years more. It gratifies my conceit to chronicle my 
small happenings, and somehow, written down in fair 
script, they seem important. And besides I am a bit 
anxious to see just how many times a certain name, 
which has lately begun to make itself prominent, will 
appear at the top of the pages. I promise to tell you 
some time, if Celestine is willing! 



THE PERFECT GO-BETWEEN 

SURELY the modern invention that has done most 
to perpetuate Romance is the telephone. The man 
who, no matter how used to this machine, can take up 
its ear-piece without a thrill of wonder has no imag- 
ination. The locomotive, the steamship, the automo- 
bile have but made travel a bit more rapid, they have 
added no new element of mystery. Even the telegraph 
fails to give any true feeling of surprise. It is no whit 
more wonderful than that one, after writing a letter 
and slipping it into a red mail-box, should be handed 
a reply by a strange blue-clad gentleman, after many 
days. A telegraphic despatch does not even hold the 
handwriting of the sender ; it is cold, colorless, metallic. 
But a machine that can bring your friend into the 
same room with you, at a moment's notice — who can 
deny the poetry of such a victory over space and time ! 
Not until some genius invents a thought-transmitter 
shall a more stupendous aid to Romance be discovered. 
For see! It is not only one's friends that are caught 
in the net of telephone wires, one can drag up a whole 

153 



154 THE PERFECT GO-BETWEEN 

city full ! I have but to sit down at my desk and call 
up a number, and he or she must reply. True, I can 
not force any one to answer, but if I have the audacity 
and persistency, it will go hard if I do not find some 
one who is willing to while away a leisure inquisitive 
moment in inconsequent conversation. 

It is my privilege to live in a telephone city where 
the habit is extraordinarily developed. One out of 
every sixteen of the population is connected to that 
most amiable of go-betweens, the Central Office. I 
have the opportunity of investigating some thirty thou- 
sand persons at the ridiculously cheap price of five 
cents per soul! Not only every counting-house and 
shop, doctor's office and corner grocery has its wire, 
but every residence with any claims to acquaintance. 
What Romance gone to waste! For few, it seems, 
have imagination enough to embrace such unlimited 
opportunities ! 

This morning Sonia called me at eight twenty-five, 
apologizing for her kind-heartedness in letting me sleep 
when she knew I wished to work. Think of that for 
an alarm clock — Sonia's voice, ten miles away! So I 
am awakened by the telephone, I call by telephone, flirt 
by telephone, shop, market and speculate over the 
same wire. We do not take long in utilizing the latest 



THE PERFECT GO-BETWEEN 155 

invention here in this hurried land — the city is ravaged 
by Telephonitis. One invites friends to dinner, one 
makes appointments, breaks the news of the death of 
a friend, proposes marriage — all by means of this little 
instrument. I know more than one lady who has her 
machine connected by flexible wares so that she may 
talk in bed. She need not be too strict in regard to 
dress for her interviews — no one ever knows ! I know 
two old men who while away long evenings together 
playing chess, when the weather is too harsh to leave 
home. Beside each board stands the faithful receiver ; 
one has but to whisper "K.B. to Q.3" or some such 
rigamarole into the nickel-plated "extension" and he 
has checkmated his opponent across the Bay ! 

With such common intercourse as this, many are 
the comedies of the telephone. I have myself enter- 
tained a visitor with a diversion he will not soon for- 
get. The day he came I took him to my telephone and 
introduced him in turn to a half-dozen ladies of my 
acquaintance, who plied him with badinage. We set 
forth then on a tour of calls, and I enjoyed his several 
attempts at identifying the voices he had heard over 
the wire. It is not always easy to recognize a voice 
and remember it. I remember an unfortunate experi- 
ence of my own with two sisters that brought a week's 



156 THE PERFECT GO-BETWEEN 

embarrassment, for the voices of members of one 
family do have a marvelous similarity in the telephone, 
and if one is anxious to call on Fanny when Elizabeth 
is out, one must be very sure just which sister one is 
speaking to when making an appointment. 

The necessity for such precaution has led some of 
my friends to adopt telephone methods which must be 
extremely amusing to one who could hear both sides 
of the conversation. In many houses the telephone is 
situated in the hall, altogether too near the dining- 
room for any confidential communication. If the ques- 
tioner is careful he may so word his inquiries that 
they may be answered by a mere "yes" or "no"; and 
papa, smoking after dinner, is none the wiser. If the 
girl finds it impossible to reply in unguarded terms, 
she has been known to say, somewhat vaguely, "Of 
course'' which conveys to the man at the other end of 
the wire the fact that she is not alone. Some, too, have 
more definite codes. Celestine has arranged with me 
that when she mentions the Call it means the fore- 
noon ; the Chronicle stands for afternoon, while by the 
Examiner I understand that she refers to the evening. 
If, then, I ring her up and say, "When can you go 
walking to-day? I want to be sure not to meet that 
fool Clubberly. ,, Clubberly, who is at her elbow, hears 



THE PERFECT GO-BETWEEN 157 

her reply sweetly, "Really ! Yes, I saw it in the Chron- 
icle;" and how is he to know what it is ail about? 
Oh, he could have his revenge easily enough, were 
he not an ass, for he might be kissing Celestine (hor- 
rid thought) even as she is speaking, for all I could 
know. 

With this romantic battery opposed to her, what 
chance has poor Mrs. Grundy? What hard-hearted 
parent can successfully immure his daughter while the 
copper wire reaches out toward her proscribed lover? 
Here is where love laughs at locksmiths. Were a 
dozen ineligibles forbidden the house, the moment 
mama's back is turned to go out for her round of calls, 
little daughter takes the telephone off the hook and, 
presto ! she has her room full of clandestine company ! 
Does any rash young man dare ring her up while her 
parents are near, she has but to say, sweetly, "Oh, you 
have the wrong number !" and hang up. It is too won- 
derful. You may lie by telephone, with a straight 
face, or you may call a man a liar with impunity. If 
you have no answer ready to an ardent impertinence, 
you need only say nothing and listen — he is helpless ; 
you need not speak unless you want to. Who made 
the first telephone made mischief for a thousand years 
to come ! 



158 THE PERFECT GO-BETWEEN 

Rrrrrrrrrrng ! 7 ! 7 There is Celestine ringing me up 
now ! Pardon me if I leave you for a moment, for I 
think she is going to give me her answer to a very 
important question. Tremendously important for me ! 
Wish me good luck ! I hope no one will be listening ! 



GROWING UP 

WHEN I asked Perilla how she first came to 
realize that she was growing up, she said, 
"When I began of my own accord to wash my sticky 
fingers without waiting to be told." I believe she 
meant it literally, with no moral significance that should 
make a parable of the statement. I hope so, at least, 
for by that test I can not hope to have yet attained the 
years of discretion. Little Sister says that she felt 
"growing pains," but here is a figure of speech, surely. 
I suppose she means the wonder of the passage from 
a great wistful ignorance to a limited knowledge ! for 
the first part of the path of life is a very steep up- 
grade. 

I myself can point to no one circumstance that re- 
vealed to me the vision of the great march of time 
that is sweeping us on toward the goal. I was for 
long like one who looks from the window of a rail- 
way carriage, too busily engaged in watching the world 
fly past him to realize his own motion. Neither long 
trousers nor razors awoke me from the child-trance; 

159 



160 GROWING UP 

I saw scorned infants master me by their inches; I 
heard rumors of love and death and duty, but I was 
unmoved. It was a part of the game of existence, and 
it seemed natural that persons should be classified and 
remain in categories of old and young. I was a spec- 
tator outside the merry-go-round. I was to be rich, 
of course ; I had the mind to dare and the will to do. 
I should be wise, too — why not ? Sometimes I should 
have memories, I thought, not knowing that I was even 
then living away my life, and that this was an era to 
which I should look back and deem important. 

All my reading, too, went to show that I was an 
amateur at living. Things seemed really to happen in 
books, but not to me; there men were swung in un- 
known furies, sensations were keen and impelling, and 
life had the sharp sting of reality. My own emotions 
seemed insipid and inadequate for a citizen of the 
world. Surely such minor escapades and trivialities 
as mine were not worth considering. And so, when 
the storm and stress came, I was ill-prepared, and at 
the first blow my pride went down. Some devil, as in 
a dream, whispered in my ear that perhaps I might not 
succeed after all, and it came to me as a summons 
that the time had come to be out and doing. And 
I saw that the conquest of my ambition would be 



GROWING UP 161 

achieved, not by the impetuous onslaught that should 
carry all before it, but by the slow and tedious siege, 
laid with years of waiting and working and watching. 
It was then, perhaps, though I did not know it, that 
I began to grow up, and became a man. I opened my 
eyes and looked about me; it was as if I had been 
landed fresh from the country in the busy town, like 
the Sleeper Awakened. No more field-faring and 
trapesing holidays under the blue sky; I must choose 
my street and fight my way for it against the throng. 
It struck me with a sense of my inferiority that there 
was an absolute quality of knowledge I had not mas- 
tered. Some of my classmates seemed to know things, 
while I had but acquired information. They could swim ; 
I dared not go in over my head. They had convic- 
tions, I had only opinions ; it was the difference be- 
tween the language of Frenchmen and of those who 
learn French. Here, I thought, was the final classifi- 
cation, and I wrote myself down a witless neophyte 
in the world's mysteries. For my whole education 
had been founded on the value of the verity of the 
straight line, and wisdom was my highest ideal. By 
this standard I measured myself and my experience. 
I delighted in the beauty of science, but of that other 
beauty which is its own excuse for being, I did not 



162 GROWING UP 

know. I was as one who saw form without color, or the 
outline without the mass. I had not yet come to my- 
self ; I was a child yet, and the result of my immedi- 
ate environment — a mental chameleon. A few gen- 
erations of my austere ancestors impregnated my blood 
with their stern virtues, and it still ran cold and tran- 
quil in my veins. But there were more remote and 
subtle influences behind me that must work them- 
selves out, and in some sub-stratum of consciousness 
the pure Greek in me survived. 

And so it was Dianeme who brought me at last to 
the door of the temple, and I saw with her eyes and 
heard with her ears, and the world grew beautiful, 
an altogether fitting setting for her charms. And then 
I knew in very truth that I had grown up; but yet, 
by a sublime miracle I had in the same revelation 
recovered my youth — if, indeed, I had ever really 
been young before ! Now, succeed or fail as I might, 
life would always be fair and interesting, for Dianeme 
was but one of a divine sisterhood, and there were 
many degrees to be taken. So a kind of passion seized 
me to know Life's different phases and find the secret 
of the whole; and that mood, God willing, shall pre- 
serve my virginity to the end. 

So here I am, by the grace of Dianeme, on the true 



GROWING UP 163 

road to youth again, not to that absolute unconcern 
of all but the present, that I once felt, nor to the fool's 
paradise, where, Maida would have it, is the true hap- 
piness — "the ability to fool one's self" — but to a kind 
of childlike wonder at things (ah, Little Sister, may 
you never wander from it as I did!) and the knowl- 
edge of what is really the most worth while. (And 
you, Perilla, you need not pretend that you don't know, 
for the truth flashes from your jest!) 

For this is the very blossom of my youth, the era of 
knowing, as that was the era of being, and though 
there may come other dark days, as there were before 
the bud burst into bloom, I have seen the beginning 
and I know the law now, and I trust that the fruit of 
my life, the doing, may be even more worth the while. 
And I shall perhaps find that wisdom and beauty and 
goodness are but one thing, as the poets say — that liv- 
ing is a continual growing up, and that age is only a 
youth that knows why it is happy ! 



A PAUPER'S MONOLOGUE 

UNDERSTAND, I am not one of those who are 
always longing to be rich. I do very well, ordi- 
narily, in the shadow of prosperity, though there 
comes upon me periodically the lust for gold, at which 
times the desire to rush down-town and spend money 
indiscreetly must be obeyed. It is a common symptom, 
paupers tell me, and carries with it its own remedy, 
giving much the same relief that blood-letting did of 
old, if so be the practise does not lead to a dangerous 
hemorrhage. I have my ups and downs, like most 
unsalaried Bohemians, thin purse, thick purse, at er- 
ratic intervals, but my spendthrift appetite is curiously 
independent of these financial fluctuations. In fact, a 
miserly restraint is most likely to seize me when my 
pocket is full, and I usually grow reckless when it has 
no silver lining. 

There are few paupers among us who do not con- 
ceit themselves to be artists at spending money, and 
believe the fit intelligence is most wanting in those 
who have the means. I confess that I share their con- 

164 



A PAUPER'S MONOLOGUE 165 

victions, having wasted much time in a study of the 
situation. Like those planning a foreign tour, I have 
mapped out the golden road of Opportunity, and know 
the itinerary by heart. And, without trespassing the 
science of Economy, of which I am criminally igno- 
rant (having been somewhat prepossessed during my 
Sophomore courses), I submit there are active and 
passive categories into which coupon-cutters may be 
relegated. The symbol of your monied man's pleas- 
ures is the cigar, involving a destructive process, 
whether applied to food, raiment or ministry to the 
senses. The greed of the collector is of the same 
flavor. It is the difference between spending the money 
to see and to stage the play that I mean. 

For why should an access of wealth so dull the 
brain that the battle between the kings of hearts and 
spades seems more interesting than the game with 
human knights and pawns? I have often been minded 
to write an "Open Letter to Millionaires," and offer 
myself as Master of their Sports, to guide them 
through fields of untried sensation and novel enter- 
prises. I have my offers tabulated from an hundred 
dollars upward, each involving the inception of activi- 
ties whose ramifications would prove diversion for 
years. There are twenty young men I know of in this 



166 A PAUPER'S MONOLOGUE 

town who are waiting for such a chance. Why should 
I not be elected to captain them? I promise you the 
rise and fall of stocks shall not be more exciting than 
our rivalries. Indeed, brains are for sale at absurd 
bargains to-day. Why not play them off against each 
other in a game of Life? 

But these are dreams never to be realized. I am no 
promoter, and must play the beggar's part. Yet I have 
often wondered how I would be affected if these hopes 
came true, and if some capitalist, touched by my ap- 
peal, seeing this good seed cast upon barren ground, 
opening his heart and purse-strings, should present 
me with a modest fortune without conditions. Could 
I assume the responsibility of. gratitude and fly with 
the load of obligation that I myself would assume? 
By all rules of fiction, no! Yet if my conscience were 
seduced I might frame my mind to accept debonairly 
and do my best. Tempt me not, millionaires, for this 
is my week of longing, and my brain boils with adven- 
turous desires. 

Yet, had I the ear of the benefactor, another mood 
would impel my renunciation ; for, against my will and 
interest, I am forced to acknowledge that others are 
better fitted to be rich than I, who have been a pauper 



A PAUPER'S MONOLOGUE 167 

all my life, and am not so unhappy in my misery. I 
know some to whom wealth should come as a right, 
as has their beauty, and who play an inconsistent part 
upon the stage of poverty. There is Dianeme, who 
knows the names of all the roses, and can tell one etch- 
ing from another. She is so instinct with tact and 
taste that I feel quite unworthy of affluence until she 
has been served. And there, too, is Little Sister, who 
is in worse case, having once ridden on high wheels 
and nestled against the padded comforts of life, now 
charioted by street-cars, with a motorman for a driver 
and a conductor for a footman. And though it was 
her reverses that gave me chance to be her friend and 
discover her worth, yet I fear I would put back my 
opportunity ten years to give her the little luxuries 
she craves. She has acquired a relish for the flesh- 
pots, poor Little Sister, and somehow the weakness 
becomes her, as the habit of weeping fitted the eight- 
eenth century ideals of women. Two more pairs of 
silk stockings would reinstate her as a lady complete. 
Not that anybody but Little Sister and her laundress 
would ever see them, but they would give her a nour- 
ishing satisfaction that is of itself worth while. 
Yet, again I wonder — if Little Sister grew rich, 



168 A PAUPER'S MONOLOGUE 

what would become of me? I am told that the first 
pangs of the birth of Fortune are felt in the unpleas- 
ant acquisition of new claimants to friendship, but I 
do not believe this is so. I should myself fear to in- 
trude, I am sure. There would be so many new rela- 
tions and obligations that I could not take the friend- 
ship simply and naturally. I could make love to her 
by letter, perhaps, but not in her carriage. I would 
miss the ungloved hand of familiarity and enclose my- 
self in starched formality, though I know the pain in 
so doing would be mutual. For the pride of riches 
is as nothing to the pride of poverty, and I am very, 
very poor ! But surely Little Sister must be rich again, 
even if I have to wait for the second table. 

And so I gracefully resign my claims to fortune, 
where I am so outclassed, and make off into the open 
fields toward the Hills of Fame, where the brougham 
of Opulence may not follow me, though I fare afoot. 
For we do not get rich in my family ; there is no uncle 
in Patagonia whose death could benefit us, and the 
bag of diamonds, the hope of whose discovery sus- 
tained my immature youth, no longer haunts my 
dreams. For a long time yet I must deny myself the 
title of gentleman, forced as I am to carry parcels 
"over three inches square," which I hear is the test 



A PAUPER'S MONOLOGUE 169 

of fashionable caste. This is my last gasp. I shall 
be a man again to-morrow, and if any millionaire is 
tempted by this appeal, he must make haste. But I 
shall not be rung up from sleep to-night. It is the 
law of society that Spend helps Save, and Save helps 
Scrimp, and Scrimp helps Starve. 



A YOUNG MAN'S FANCY 

UNDOUBTEDLY the most logical, though per- 
haps the least interesting, method of opening 
the discussion of a thesis, is that employed by the skil- 
ful carver who dissects his duck according to the natu- 
ral divisions of the subject and proceeds therewith 
analytically. This is the system encouraged in aca- 
demic courses and is said to enable any one to write 
upon any subject. But such an essay is mighty hard 
reading; unless a writer is so hungry for his theme 
that he forgets his manners and falls to without cere- 
mony the chances are that his efforts will receive scant 
attention. And so I shyly speak of love. 

So few essayists write with a good appetite! And 
yet, see how I restrain myself, and perforce adopt the 
conventional procedure, as one too proud to betray 
his ravening hunger ! I must be calm, I must be polite 
— and you shall know only by my forgetfulness of the 
salt and my attention to the bones of thought, how the 
game interests me. In speaking of love, I must let my 
head guard my heart, too, for it is in the endeavor to 

170 



A YOUNG MAN'S FANCY 171 

misunderstand women that we pass our most delight- 
ful moments. They will not permit men to be too sure 
of them, and what you learn from one, you must hide 
carefully from the next. So I begin my fencing with 
a great feint of awkwardness, like a master with a 
beginner, knowing well enough how likely to get into 
trouble is any one who pretends to knowledge. 

For a long time I believed it all a conspiracy of the 
novelists, and that love, so ideally depicted, was but 
a myth, kept alive by the craft, to furnish a backbone 
for literary sensation. But there are undoubtedly 
many bigoted believers in the theory of love. The 
women, however, who admit that it is a lost art, com- 
plain piteously of the ineptitude of the other sex. I 
confess that few men can satisfactorily acquit them- 
selves of the ordeal of courtship without some tuition, 
but, once having acquired the rudiments of the profes- 
sion, it seems inconsistent to taunt them with the ex- 
periments of their apprenticeship. It is too much to 
require a man to make a gallant wooing and then twit 
him with the "promiscuousness" by which he won his 
facility. Yet, some, doubtless, have learned also to 
defend themselves against this last accusation; it is 
the test of the Passed Master. For the other, poor 
dolts, who never see the opportunity for action, how- 



172 A YOUNG MAN'S FANCY 

ever adroitly presented, who speak when they should 
hold tongue and leave undone all those things that 
they ought to have done — the girls marry them, to be 
sure, but most of the love-making is on the wrong 
side. There are more yawns than kisses; the brutal 
question satisfies the yop, and he bungles through the 
engagement, breaking doggedly through the crust of 
the acquaintance, witless of the delightful perils of 
thin ice. 

And yet I think the subject might be mastered in 
four lessons with a good teacher, so that a man of 
ordinary capacity could make good way for himself. 
This is by no means a new theory; it is the founda- 
tion of many a comedy of errors, this of Love with a 
Tutor. But go not to school of a maid, for she will 
fool you to the top of your bent, nor to a married 
woman either, but to a man like my younger brother 
here, no Lothario, but one who can keep two steps 
ahead of any affair he enters. 

If a man be agile and daring, with sufficient ardor 
to assume the offensive, having an audacious tongue 
and a wary eye with a fine sense of congruity and tact, 
withal, if he can make love with a laugh and a rhyme, 
as Cyrano fought, then 'tis a different matter, and he 
needs no pilot to take his sweetheart over the bar and 



A YOUNG MAN'S FANCY 173 

into the port. He must be bold, but not too bold, carry 
a big spread of canvass, luff, reef and tack her with 
no shuffling, cast the lead on the run, keeping in sound- 
ings, and never lose headway when she comes about 
into a new mood. He must bear a sensitive hand at 
the tiller, keep her close up to the wind with no trem- 
ble in the leach of the sail, and gain advantage from 
every tide and cross-current. Better dash against the 
reef than run high and dry upon the shoal ! 

It is a pity, is it not, to dissect love in such a fashion ? 
I should have my hero quite at the mercy of the gale 
of passion, and be swept forward, he knows not how 
and cares not where ; he should lose his wits and take 
a mad delight in the fury of the storm, seeing no spot 
upon his horizon. And yet I dare not be warmer, for 
some time I may decide to fall in love myself, and I 
would not have my chances wrecked by any genuine 
confession of faith, set in type, to which She might 
refer, with a beautiful taunt. No ! it is better to phrase 
and verbalize; the subject is too dear, and near done 
to its death already. I would but suggest the cross- 
references, and, under a mien of conceit, throw my 
female readers off their guard, leaving my fellow- 
men to read between the lines. 

For I hear that men do fall in love with women, 



174 A YOUNG MAN'S FANCY 

while women fall in love with loving. So be it. I have 
known girls, too, to take both vanilla and strawberry 
in their soda-water, which proves them to be not alto- 
gether simple in their tastes. The best of them will 
talk volubly upon love in the abstract, while the aver- 
age man (to which category I hope I have the honor 
of not belonging) keeps his mouth closed on the mat- 
ter, with his tongue in his cheek, and his ideas, if he 
have any, well hidden behind his words. 

So, if I avail myself of the feminine franchise, it 
must be done cautiously, for many are the difficulties 
of the young man who would love a girl to-day, and 
only a precious few of the old school of beaux would 
understand the twentieth century's subtleties, even if 
all could be explained. Many are the misfortunes in 
the Lover's Litany, from which the modern maiden 
sighs, "Good Lord, deliver us !" A man must take her 
in earnest, but he must by no means take himself too 
seriously ; it is proper to treat your passion cavalierly — 
indeed, he jests at scars who has felt the most amorous 
darts, nowadays — but he must never make himself or 
her ridiculous. He may take whimsical amusement 
in his own conquest, but must beware "the little broken 
laugh that spoils a kiss." And above all, mind you the 
mise-en-scene — the stage must be set so and so; the 



A YOUNG MAN'S FANCY 175 

sun must not see what the moon sees. Sometimes you 
must have your heart in your mouth, and sometimes 
on your sleeve, and oftener she must have it herself. 
Tis very perplexing ! 

The best a man can do, in this practical age, is to 
mean business, while he is about it, and hold over as 
much for the next day as will not interfere with his 
commerce elsewhere. The woman may take her ro- 
mance to bed, or keep it warm in the oven against his 
return, but he must be out and down-town to earn his 
living as well as his loving, among dollars and pounds 
and cent per cent, while she enjoys the traffic in pure 
abstractions. And both must hide and manage as if it 
were a sin, lest Mrs. Grundy undo them; they must 
snatch their kisses, as it were, on horseback. Such are 
the victims of supercivilization ! 

There was a time, the poets tell, when it was not 
so difficult, and a man might wear a lady's scarf on 
his sleeve, and be proud of the badge. It takes much 
more complicated machinery than that simple love to 
make the world go round, nowadays — perhaps because 
it goes so much faster. There was a time when an 
elopement might be picturesque and not necessarily 
followed by divorce; but where now shall I find the 
hard-hearted parent who shall justify the adventure? 



176 A YOUNG MAN'S FANCY 

The modern mother is too easy. She is like Mrs. 
Brown in the Bab Ballads — "a foolish, weak but ami- 
able old thing." She reposes a trust in her daughter 
that does more credit to her affection than to her 
knowledge of human nature. 

But whoa ! I believe I have forgotten my manners ! 
I have insulted my fellows, guyed the girls, and here 
I am on the high road to disqualifying myself with the 
more respectable generation. So I shall cease, but I 
will not apologize, for though I came to scoff, I shall 
not remain to prey. I believe I am not more than half 
wrong after all. There is love, and there is loving, 
and if you have followed me, you know which is which. 
It was Rosalind who said, "Some Cupid kills with ar- 
rows, some with traps!" How she would smile and 
sneer at this verbiage! She knew a lover from a 
philanderer, she had her opinion of the laggard and 
the butterfly rover, and, hearing my folly, she would 
no doubt say : "Cupid hath clapped him on the shoul- 
der, but I'll warrant him heart-whole !" 



THE BACHELOR'S ADVANTAGE 

THERE are enough who think "a young man 
married is a young man marred" to cause the 
bachelor to hesitate before renouncing his liberties, 
and to fight shy of entanglement as long as possible. 
If he writes down the "pros" and "cons," like Robin- 
son Crusoe, he will find he has many advantages in 
his single state that must inevitably be forfeited when 
he weds. 

It is not only that "when I was single my pockets 
would jingle, I would I were single again;" it is not 
so much, either, that his play-day will be over and he 
must "settle down," stop butterfly-lovering to and fro, 
and gathering the roses as he goes, and have a haunt- 
ing white face sitting up for him at home to ask him 
why, and how, and where. This license, if he be a man 
of sentiment, he willingly foregoes for the larger pos- 
sibilities of satisfactory comradeship and sympathy. 
He can pay double rent and taxes, too, without grum- 
bling; take manfully the shock of surprise when ex- 
penses jump with the new establishment; he may be 

177 



178 THE BACHELOR'S ADVANTAGE 

initiated in doctor's fees, and submit debonairly to a 
thousand restrictions of time, place and opportunity. 
But more piquant than any of these trials is the dis- 
covery that he has lost his old-time place and privilege 
of welcome as a bachelor — that "come any time" hos- 
pitality of his dearest friends. He is saddled with a 
secondary consideration. 

Try as he may, no young man can marry to please 
his whole acquaintance. The world, for the most part, 
still looks with patronizing approval on a girl's wed- 
ding so long as she chooses or is chosen by a man not 
hopelessly impossible. She has embraced an oppor- 
tunity and usually her mother cultivates a grateful 
fondness for the son-in-law. If he has a scarcity of 
amiable traits she will even manufacture them for him, 
and put them on the market with display. Not so the 
mother of the groom. She analyzes the bride with 
incisive dissection, and it is hardly possible that any 
woman shall be found quite worthy to mate with her 
son. It takes a woman to read women, she says, and 
the young wife has to make a fight for each step of the 
road from condescension through complaisance to com- 
pliment. 

The young man's friends, too, are exigent, and he 



THE BACHELOR'S ADVANTAGE 179 

soon finds that, though the two have been made one 
in the sight of law and clergy, society knows no such 
miraculous algebra. You may squeeze in an extra 
chair at the dinner table for a desirable and "interest- 
ing young man," but to include another lady, and that 
his wife, requires a tiresome rearrangement. He does 
not come alone ordinarily, nor would he if asked, and 
so he drops out of his little world and must set about 
the creation of a new one. He may have had latch- 
key privileges at a dozen houses, free to come night 
or morning, the recipient of many sudden invitations 
for theater, supper or country — but that is all over. 
It is his turn to do the inviting. The table has been 
well turned when he sits down to meat ! 

Is it to be wondered at, then, that the bachelor is 
selfish? He escapes lightly the lesson of compromise; 
his whole life is a training in egoism, and he makes the 
most of his desirability, getting usually far more than 
he gives. He is free to experiment in acquaintance 
though it goes no further than innocuous flirtation. 
He may make friendships for himself and break them 
at will, lightly dodging the tie. There are hundreds 
in every city who need go only where they wish, skip- 
ping even "duty calls/' sure of forgiveness. He may 






180 THE BACHELOR'S ADVANTAGE 

know men and women he cares for, and, through the 
lack of experience in a life-long intimacy, he may 
preserve many illusions as to women. If he has an 
income, or a profession that demands no abode, he can 
wander "to and fro in the earth and walk up and down 
in it" free as Satan. He travels the farthest who 
travels alone. 

Still, this can not go on forever, and his franchise 
wanes. With the first pang of middle age Nature as- 
serts her imperious demand for permanent compan- 
ionship. The "cons" grow heavier, and the "pros" 
more attractive. He sees maid after maid of his 
younger fancy pass out of the game without regret, 
but the first sight of the new generation strikes him 
to the heart. He is "uncled" by more and more 
adopted nephews and nieces, and the sight of their 
fresh eyes awakens the immemorial longing in him. 
And then, suddenly, another "pro" comes upon the 
list, an undeniable item of importance, throwing its 
influence so heavily upon the side of marriage that no 
number of his foolish little "cons" can ever balance 
the account. He is in love, and there is but one defini- 
tion for that state. It is the immediate, ravenous, com- 
pelling desire for a wife. There is nothing for it but 



THE BACHELOR'S ADVANTAGE 181 

to renounce allegiance to his old friends and become 
naturalized into a new citizenship. 

But though all over town the doors to which he cried 
"open sesame" bang sullenly to shut him out, he does 
not notice it if that one portal lets him in ! 



THE CONFESSIONS OF AN 
IGNORAMUS 

MUSICIANS tell me that I am exceptionally for- 
tunate. I know' absolutely nothing of music. 
It is not a bald fathomless innocence, however. I 
am not tone-deaf, for instance, and certain composi- 
tions please me; and, knowing nothing, I have been 
treated with indulgent complaisance by the profession, 
and among them I have the unique license of being 
privileged to like whatever I choose. It is no small 
distinction this, nowadays, when one is nicely and 
strictly rated by his compliance to the regnant mode, 
but I have to fight topth and nail to defend my inno- 
cence. I have determined that whatever happens, I 
will not be educated. 

For a while, once on a time, I hazarded my fran- 
chise of free speech and weakly accepted the tutelage 
of a master, that I might at least gain a familiarity 
with the catch-words of the musical fraternity. It 
was the more reprehensible and foolish because I had 
already lost my virginity in art circles by the same 

182 



CONFESSIONS OF AN IGNORAMUS 183 

servility. Long ago I learned to phrase and gesticu- 
late at the picture galleries, and try as I may, I can 
not forget the formulae. I learned to stand with eyes 
half closed before a painting, and, waving my hand, 
murmur, "I like this part, in here!" I caught that 
knowing waggle of the right thumb, and prated of 
"modeling, tricky work, atmosphere, composition, val- 
ues," and such humbuggery. I could say, straight- 
faced, and with a vicious, explosive gesture, "Oh, it's 
good in color, but it just lacks that, you know !" By 
jove ! I was in up to the ears before I knew it, and 
now my critiques are retailed to the semi-elect as com- 
ing from one of the Cognoscenti. I have learned the 
terminology of the craft so well that my very in- 
structors have forgotten my novitiate ; but an art ex- 
hibition is a horror to me, for I go bound by the ten- 
ure of hypocrisy and dare not walk freely, forced to 
rattle my chains as I limp through the forbidden pas- 
tures of delight — the candy box pictures and chromos 
that my soul loves with that fierce first love that never 
dies. 

So I have learned to avoid the Pierian spring now, 
having escaped the seductions of Euterpe by the mer- 
est chance. He is said to be a fool who is caught 
twice by the same trick, and I write myself down a 



184 CONFESSIONS OF AN IGNORAMUS 

worse-witted clown yet when I confess how far on 
the high road to folly I was before I jumped the fence 
of conventional parlance and broke for the wide fields 
where lies my freedom. 

I had been led astray by practising the non-com- 
mittal remark, "Oh, what is that?" as soon as the 
piano keys cooled off from the startling massage of 
the furious performer. I was bold. I even dared 
to be the first to speak, and I threw ambiguous mean- 
ings into that well-known exclamation, for I was as- 
sured it was always safe, whether it followed a Mos- 
kowski mazurka hot from the blunt fingers of a Kansas 
City poor relation, or a somnolent Chopinian prelude 
hypnotized by the evening star. I learned that the 
statute of Absorbed Attention had expired, and that 
the lifted eyebrow, the semi-concealed shrug, the overt 
smile behind the performer's back, and the ex post 
facto rescindment of all these in one jnucilaginous 
compliment, were now good taste. Bah ! I sickened 
of it all soon enough, for I had been piously brought 
up, and my Puritan blood was anti-toxic to the cor- 
ruptions of the musical microbe. 

And so I have forgotten to speak of Grieg as a 
"mere sentimentalist" and all the rest of the Pharisee's 



CONFESSIONS OF AN IGNORAMUS 185 

phrase-book, thank God ! I can hear the Mill in the 
Forest and check up its verisimilitudes, item by item, 
even as I have dared to renew my youth with Charles 
Dickens, and laugh, cry, and grow hot and cold with 
Scott's marionettes. 

Yet, as I said, my innocence is not altogether empty. 
There is, indeed, no such thing in life as absolute dark- 
ness; one's eyes revolt and hasten to fill the vacuum 
by floating in sparks, dream-patterns, figures whim- 
sical and figures grotesque, shifting, clad in comple- 
mentary colors, to appease the indignant cups and 
rods of the retina. And so my musical ignorance is 
alive with a fey intelligence of its own. I have come 
at last to an original conception of what is good and 
what is bad by its mere psychological effect, as illog- 
ical as a woman's intuition, yet as absolute and em- 
pirical as the test of acid and alkali by litmus. 

It has come to this, that I know now I shall never 
hear good music again. When I was young the phrase 
"classical music" was still extant (I come of the mid- 
dle classes, where one calls a spade a spade), and 
that variety of sound, "the most expensive of noises," 
was as incomprehensible as was the training for its 
appreciation arduous ; so that beauty for its own sake 



186 CONFESSIONS OF AN IGNORAMUS 

was unknown, or lurked behind the horizontal moun- 
tains of Truth that shut in the New England land- 
scape. 

But as my knowledge and love of art grew, and I 
mingled with those that spoke this foreign tongue of 
beauty, I had opportunity of hearing music, the only 
music that was worth while to them, the music that 
endures and lives, continually virile and creative. Curi- 
ously enough, and unhappily for me, so long a stranger 
to such influences, I found that some compositions 
spelled me with their subtlety, tranced me into reverie, 
while others awakened active feelings of amusement, 
surprise, or scientific curiosity as to their construction ; 
and so, ignorant of technique and composition, har- 
moily, and all the rules of the art, I have gone back 
to the woman in me, and trust to her little ounce of 
instinct. 

When the vibrant chords, the sobbing pulsations and 
the mystical nuances grow faint and die away as 
my dream mounts on the wings of an invisible mel- 
ody, leaving the sawing bows, the brazen curly horns, 
the disks, cylinders, strings, keys, triangles, curves and 
tubes, with which paraphernalia the magicians of the 
orchestra have bewitched me, far, far, far below where 
I soar aloft, naked and alone in the secret spaces of 



CONFESSIONS OF AN IGNORAMUS 187 

my soul, — I know (not then, but afterward) that the 
talisman has been at work, and as the rhythm dies 
and I drop, drop to the world again and turn to the 
trembling, wide-eyed girl at my left, and am roused 
by the brutal applause that surges around me, — I know 
that this was music. But I have not heard it. Alas ! 
Shall I never hear it ? 



A MUSIC-BOX RECITAL 

HID secretly in my heart, long I had a passion 
for music-boxes. While I was innocent of the 
ways of the world, and thought that Art, as some 
think that Manners, had a ritual to which one must 
conform in order to be considered a gentleman, I hid 
this low-born taste from my friends and talked daintily 
of Brahms, his frozen music, of the architectural son- 
ata, and other things I did not understand. How 
musicians and artists must have laughed at me when 
they saw my hands — square, constructive palms, wil- 
ful thumbs and mechanical fingers ! Music-box hands ! 
But though I had long ceased cutting stencils of other 
people's thoughts and frescoing my own vanity there- 
with, I dared not confess to John this wretchedly 
vulgar penchant for the music-box of Commerce — 
the small, varnished, brass and cedar afifair, which is 
the only instrument I can play. 

But at ten of the clock one night the yearning be- 
came so intense in me that I burst the bonds of my 
discretion, and lo! at the first word John fell heavily 
into my arms. He, too, cherished this unhallowed joy 

188 



A MUSIC-BOX RECITAL 189 

in secret, and had long hidden this tendresse behind 
a mask of propriety. We dried our eyes, and were 
into overcoats and out on the street in a single presto 
measure, set to a swift staccato march for the Bow- 
ery. We must have a music-box apiece before we 
slept — we swore it in a great forte oath ! Prestissimo ! 
but we were hungry for a good three-dollar package 
of discord ! It was none of these modern contrivances 
with perforated disks and interchangeable tunes we 
were after ; not the penny-in-the-slot, beer saloon air- 
shaker nor the anthropomorphic Pianola, nor yet the 
parrot-like phonograph cruelly precise; no, only the 
regulation old-fashioned Swiss instrument would 
serve, the music-box of our youth, the wonderful, 
complicated little engine with a cylinder bristling with 
pins that pricked forth harmonies from the soul of a 
steel comb, its melody limpid with treble accompani- 
ments lithely sustained at the small end, where the 
teeth are small and active, with a picture of children 
skating on the cover top, and beneath, under glass — 
oh ! rapture ! — the whirring wheels all in sight, tempt- 
ing the small, inquisitive finger of youth. 

After an incredible amount of discussion as to the 
relative merits of the repertoires, we came to a de- 
cision and fled home, to abandon ourselves to the dis- 



190 A MUSIC-BOX RECITAL 

tractions of our tiny orchestras. The boxes were so 
full of music ! They have been trying to empty them- 
selves ever since, but the magic purse seems inexhaust- 
ible. One night, in my idyllic youth, a German band 
played all night long under my window ; but now I 
could carry the divine gift of music in my overcoat 
pocket ! I was like that Persian monarch for whom 
was made the first pair of shoes. "Your Majesty," 
said his vizier, "now at last for you, indeed, is the 
whole world covered with leather, as thou hast de- 
manded !" O Allah ! Now for me was the whole 
world patrolled with German bands ! They played 
Say Ait Revoir, but not Good-by under my pillow; 
they gave me Honey, my Honey as I ate my breakfast. 
Before the week was up we had learned every tune 
by heart, down to the last grace-note in the accom- 
paniment. We had learned, too, the sequence of tunes, 
inevitable, unchanging as the laws of the Medes of 
old. Never again shall I be able to hear Sweet Marie 
played without a shock that it is not followed by the 
Isabella Waltz! Never again shall I hear the end of 
Honey, my Honey without a tremble of nervous sus- 
pense till comes the little click! of the shooting cylin- 
der, the apprehensive pause, and then — hurrah! the 
first gay notes of Sweet Marie! 



A MUSIC-BOX RECITAL 191 

But we could not long endure the perfect simplicity 
of the airs, and the old touch of supercivilization led 
us on to attempt to vary and improve the performance 
of our songs. It was John who discovered the virtue 
of a few pillows stuffed on top of the machine, and 
he achieved immense con expressione effects by wav- 
ing the box wildly in the air. I contented myself 
with changing the angle of the fan-wheel so as to 
make it play allegro; then one got so very much mu- 
sic in such a very little while — surely a pardonable 
gluttony ! Had my box been larger I might have heard 
seven complete operas in an hour, like the old Duke 
in Sylvie and Bruno I Yet, after all, it was versatility 
of quality, rather than mere quantity, that should be 
the greatest victory, and we set out on experiments 
in timbre. At last we found, John and I, that by in- 
serting a little paper cylinder under the glass, so as 
to press on the keys, we could give Sousa the grip, 
as one might say, and he would cough and wheeze in 
a way amply to discredit the statement that there is 
no such thing as humor in music. A greater thickness 
of paper gives the effect of a duo with mandolin and 
banjo, and this was by far the most successful of our 
variations. 

I should end as I began, I know, by a bit of maud- 



192 A MUSIC-BOX RECITAL 

lin philosophical moralysis. I might, for instance, trace 
the resemblances in the musical world and say that 
for me the conductor waving his baton is as one who 
winds the key to a very human music-box, in which 
each tooth of the comb is a living, vibrant soul. Or 
I might broach a flagon of morality, forbye, and show 
how each one of us plays his little mental tunes in a 
set routine, wound up by the Great Musician; what 
devils stick their fingers into our works, and bid us 
play more fast or slow, more loud, more low; what 
jests of Fate, who inserts her cacophonous paper cyl- 
inder that we may wheeze through mis fortunate ob- 
bligatos of pain. 

But no ! My forelegs are stuck in the bog of real- 
ism, and I shall not budge from the literal presenta- 
tion, for my little kingdom of delight suffered a rev- 
olution ! It was John's fault, for John had been 
affecting a musical countess who gave afternoon talks 
on the "art of listening," in a studio — dry molecular 
analyses of Kneisel Quartets and such like verbiage. 
So he came home late one night, while a music-box 
was bowling away merrily upon the couch with a one- 
pillow soft pedal. It was my music-box, too ! 

"Bah !" he swore, "your box phrases so abominably. 
It is so cold, so restrained, so colorless! Hear mine, 



A MUSIC-BOX RECITAL 193 

now — isn't that an excellent pianissimo? There's pol- 
ished technique! There's chiaroscuro! Oh, listen 
to that Cat Came Back! My machine is an artist; 
yours is a mere virtuoso. Mine is a Joachim, a d'Al- 
bert; yours is a Musin, a de Kontski. Get on to the 
smooth, suave legato of this wonderful box! Hear 
its virile octaves ! Hark to those scales, like strings 
of white-hot pearls dropping upon velvet !" He was 
moaning and tossing as he snored these parodies. It 
was a nightmare, both for him and for me. At four 
o'clock, in the first pink gray of the morning, I could 
endure it no longer. Our paradise was lost. The critic, 
as snake, had polluted our innocent Eden. I arose 
haggardly and threw the two music-boxes into the 
fire! 



A PLEA FOR THE PRECIOUS 

NOW if a youth as mad-headed as I, without 
bookishness or literary education of any sort, 
with neither much of anything to say, nor much de- 
sire to say anything — if such a charlatan would have 
his wares bought and his words read, he must be antic 
beyond his contemporains (a shorter word than the 
English equivalent, whereby I go forward one step 
in brevity and back two in translation). He must 
pique curiosity and tempt the 'reader on ; he must pay 
a contango, which is, by the same token, a premium 
paid for the privilege of deferring interest. He must, 
in short, be "precious," a quality essentially self-con- 
scious. This has been at times a popular pose in Let- 
ters, and when successful it is a sufficiently amusing 
one, as poses go; but I name no names for the sake 
of the others who fall between the stools of purpose 
and pretense — who tie, as one might say, two one- 
legged beggars together and think they have made a 
whole man. 

If I have lured you so far into the web of my va- 

194 



A PLEA FOR THE PRECIOUS 195 

gary, pray come into my parlor, too, and be hung for 
the whole sheep that you are, that I may fleece you 
close with my sophistries before you go. I have but 
one toy here to amuse you. I juggle idioms and bal- 
ance phrases upon my pen, and whether you laugh at 
me or with me, I care not, moL But as seriously as 
is possible (seriousness is not my present pose, I as- 
sure you), I would I might wheedle some of your 
dogged, clogged, rugged, ragged, fagged, foggy wits 
out of you, and constrain you to accept my pinchbeck 
for true plate the while; for I have a little sense in 
my alloy, after all, and you might go further and fare 
the worse than by my chatter. If I dared I would 
jump boldly into my thesis, without apologies; but it 
so happens that it is one that should be itself its own 
illustration. I should convince you of its truth by 
its own garment of expression, instead of depending 
upon my logical introductory presentation. But this 
I fear to try. My pistols, I fear, are, as the Duchess 
of Malfi might say, loaded with nothing but perfumes 
and kissing-comfits. 

Now that you are well a-muddled, and like to turn 
to a saner page, let me button-hole you with one clean 
statement while you stand, gasping. Indeed I fear 
that a dozen have fled already from my gibbering, 






196 A PLEA FOR THE PRECIOUS 

and I speak to but one sullen survivor, determined 
to collect^ his promised interest. We know, then, the 
joy of color, taste, sound and odor as mere sensual 
gratifications, undiluted with significance. But, since 
I seldom read, I have never seen the apology for the 
sensual pleasures of diction, pure and simple in its 
essence. Swinburne, I hear, has his lilts and har- 
monies in poesy, and perhaps that is the nearest like, 
except for the Purpose that drives his chariot; but I 
am for that runaway mood that gallops gaily forth 
into Nowhere, unguided and unrestrained. A twenty 
bookmen shall come up to me, no doubt, with their 
index fingers set upon examples, but I am happier in 
my ignorance, and I prefer to think it has not yet 
been done — or, at least, not exactly as I mean. In- 
deed, you may depend upon me to evade proof with 
some quibble. 

Your didactic prose is a wain, pulled over the hard 
city street. Fiction is the jaunting-car that paddles 
down the by-side lane. Poetry wallops you along the 
bridle path with your mistress Muse on a pillion, and, 
but very rarely, dares across country, over a low 
hedge or two (but always after some fleeting hare of 
thought) ; but I — I am for the reckless run over the 
moor and downs — the riderless random enthusiasm of 



A PLEA FOR THE PRECIOUS 197 

nonsense! So out of my way, gentlemen of the red 
coats, or I bowl you down! Mazeppa might do for 
a figure, but his steed was hampered with the load; 
his runaway had too savage an import, and it is my 
purpose to i>e only a little mad. Pegasus is a forbid- 
den metaphor nowadays. He is hackneyed by the 
livery of vulgar stables. I prefer that Black Horse, 
vanned and terrible, who flicked out the eyes of the 
Second Calender, as my mount is like to serve me ! 

In the sonata is an exemplification of my theory. 
There, now, is a vehicle that carries no passengers, 
save what one's fancy lades it with- — it charges and 
soars with no visible rein to guide it, except when a 
thread of melody steers it into some little course of 
delight. So there is a secret rhythm in the best prose 
that is more subtle than the meters of verse, and which 
is to the essay what the expression of the face is to 
the talker. One may, indeed, use that same word, ex- 
pression or gesture, instead of the common term, style. 
But a common or house observation shows us that 
there is some pleasure in the face whose lips are dumb, 
and I dare say there is joy for the coxcomb and female 
fop in the unworn gown, as it hangs on its lonely nail, 
or is draped on the lay figure of meaningless, meaning- 
ful form. So it is to such hair-brains and cockatoos I 



198 A PLEA FOR THE PRECIOUS 

appeal. Come to my masquerade and let us for a wild 
half-hour wear the spangles and tights of palestric im- 
propriety, hid by a visor that shall not betray our 
thought. In this lesser pantomime one may be irrele- 
vant, inconsequent and immature, and sport the flower 
of thought that has not yet fruited into purpose. 

Can you find your way through this frivolity, mixed 
metaphor and tricksy phrase, and see what a wanton a 
paragraph may become when one sends it forth, free 
from the conventional moralities of licensed Litera- 
ture? I have been to many such debauch, and have 
got so drunk on adjectives that I thought all my 
thoughts double. In this harlequinade, too, there are 
more games than my promised sonata. I will mock 
you the Mill in the Forest, or any other descriptive 
piece, with colored words, parodying your orchestra 
with graphic nonsense. I will paint the charms of the 
dance in seductive syllables ; or no ! better — the long 
forthright swing of the skater, this way, that way, 
fast and faster, the Ice King's master, the nibble of the 
cold, the brush of the rasping breeze, the little ras- 
cally hubbies where the wind has pimpled the surface, 
and the dark, blue-black slippery glare beyond, where 
— damn it ! — I shock you with a raucous expletive, and 
you plunk into a dash of ice-cold remonstrance up to 



-• «~ ... ^^. 



A PLEA FOR THE PRECIOUS 199 

your ears, and flounder, cold and dripping, tooth-loose, 
and gray with fright ! 

So at the expense of good taste and to the grief of 
the judicious, I force my point upon you. En garde, 
messieurs, and answer me! I find few enough who 
can play the game with me or for me. The age of 
Chivalry is gone, in horsemanship as well as in feats 
of arms and sword-play. Who knows the demi-volt, 
the caracole, the curvet, the capriole or the rest of the 
Seven Movements? Who is elegant in the High Ma- 
nege or Raised Airs ? Who prances for the sheer de- 
light of gallant rhetoric, on Litotes, Asteism or Ono- 
matopoeia ? Fain would I be bedeviled, but the Magii 
are passed away. I must fall back on Doctor John- 
son's pious flim-flam, but the humors of his verbiage 
are in me, not in him. 

Yet the New Century Carnival is proclaimed and, 
over the water, there are, I hear, a few who are to 
revel with King Rex in the Empire of Unreason. On 
this side the nearest we have got to it is a little machine- 
made nonsense, ground out for the supposititious 
amusement of babes. But what I mean is neither second 
childhood, nor bombast, nor buffoonery, nor silliness, 
nor even insanity — though that is nearest the mark — 
but a tipsy Hell-raising with this wine of our fine old 



200 A PLEA FOR THE PRECIOUS 

English speech. It has been too long corked up and 
cobwebbed by tradition, sanctified to the Elect, and 
discreetly dispensed at decorous dinner tables by re- 
spectable authors and ladies-with-three-names who also 
write. It has been too long sipped and tasted minc- 
ingly out of the cut-glass goblets of the literary table. 
Gentlemen-inebriates all, I wave you the red flag! 
A torch this way ! What ho, roysterers ! Up young- 
lings, quodlings, dab-chicks, devil-may-cares and mad- 
mannered blades ! To the devil with the tip-staves and 
tithing-men, constables, beadles, vergers, deputy-sher- 
ififs anl long-lipped parsons ! A raid on the wine-cel- 
lar to break flagons of good English, and drink, drink, 
drink, till your heads spin! There is still joy and in- 
toxication in the jolly old bottles filled by Shakespeare 
and his giddy-phrased buccaneering crew. Let the 
serious scorn and philosophers prate! "By Gadslid! 
I scorn it, to be a consort for every humdrum, hang 
them, scroyles !" 



SUB ROSA 

PERHAPS I am as discreet, honorable and loyal as 
the ordinary man, but I confess that at times I 
have a frantic desire to escape to the moon and tell 
all I know, or to unburden myself of the weight of 
dynamic confidences, pouring my revelations into the 
ears of some responsive idiot. In the old days a corpse 
was fastened to the felon's back in punishment of cer- 
tain crimes, and to me a secret seems almost as deadly 
a load-. The temptation to vivify the tale and make it 
walk abroad on its own legs is hard to deny. 

There are secrets so dangerous that to possess them 
is foolhardy. It is like storing dynamite in one's draw- 
ing-room ; an explosion is always imminent, and publi- 
cation would mean disaster. I have known tales my- 
self, so outrageous, so bulging with scandal, that, had 
I not promptly forgotten them, they would have un- 
done society twenty times over ! There is a titillating 
pleasure in the keeping of such terrific truths and it 
increases one's inward pride to think that one knows 
of another what, if told, would change the aspect of a 

201 



202 SUB ROSA 

life. The temptation to tell is like being in church and 
suddenly seized with an almost irresistible impulse to 
shriek aloud, or like standing at the verge of a cliff and 
being impelled to throw one's self over. To give way 
to the perfidious thought means moral death, and when 
one falls, one brings others down as well. 

Many of us, though we conceit ourselves to be wor- 
thy of trust, are, as regards our secrets, in a state of 
unstable equilibrium. Women, seeing and feeling 
things more personally and subjectively than men, are 
especially hazardously poised. So long as the friend- 
ship with the confidant is preserved, the secret is safe, 
but let estrangement come, and suddenly the balance 
becomes top-heavy ; one's morality falls and the secret 
escapes in the crash of anger. I have known women 
who felt themselves quite free to tell secrets when the 
proper owner of them proved guilty of unfaithful- 
ness. The difference in view-point of the sexes seems 
to be this : men have a definite code of honor, certain 
well-recognized laws of conduct acknowledged even by 
those who do not always obey them. "The brand of 
the dog is upon him by whom is a secret revealed." If 
a woman is honorable (in the man's sense of the term), 
it is a test of her individual character, and not of con- 
formity to any feminine ethical system. 



SUB ROSA 203 

Most men, for instance, and some women (especially 
when influenced by love or great friendship), will keep 
a confidence not only passively, but actively. As Kip- 
ling's Haftz teaches — 

"If there be trouble to Herward, and a lie of the blackest can 

clear, 
Lie, while thy lips can move, or a man is alive to hear I" 

It seems right, too, that in lesser cases one is justified 
in lying to protect one's own secret, as in disavowing 
the authorship of an anonymous book; for one surely 
need not be at the mercy of every questioner. The 
true confidant is not a mere negative receptacle for 
your story, but a positive ally. 

On the other hand, there are those who hold that a 
singular and prime friendship dissolves all other obli- 
gations whatsoever, and that secrets betrayed are the 
greatest sacrifices possible upon the altar of love. Mon- 
taigne says, "The secret I have sworn not to reveal to 
any other I may, without perjury, communicate to him 
who is not another, but myself." There are few friend- 
ships nowadays so close as his with Estienne de la 
Boetie (who, himself, "would not so much as lie in 
jest") ; theirs was one of the great friendships of his- 
tory; but there is much casuistry used by those who 



204 SUB ROSA 

would manifest their importance in knowing mysteri- 
ous things. They obey the letter of the law and tell 
without really telling, letting the truth leak out in wise 
hints and suggestions, or they tell part of a tale and 
hoodwink themselves into thinking that they have vio- 
lated no confidence. Yet nothing is so dangerous as 
half a truth. It is like pulling one end of a bow-knot. 
Sooner or later it is inevitable that the hearer will come 
across the other side, and the cat will be out of the 
bag. 

But some dramatic secrets have so great a fiction 
interest, or such sensational psychology that one is 
quite unable to refrain from telling the tale, without 
names, or localities, perhaps, merely for the story's 
sake. This is, perhaps, permissible when one really 
tells for the study of human nature rather than as 
gossip. It is dangerous always, but a clever person 
can so distort certain details that the true characters 
can never be traced. For myself, I would never de- 
mand absolute confidence, for I would never tell any- 
thing to anybody whose discretion I could not abso- 
lutely trust, and a friend can as often aid one by 
telling at the proper time as by keeping silent. 

Some secrets are told only for the purpose of be- 
ing repeated. What one can not tell one's self one 



SUB ROSA 205 

must get others to tell for one, and this trick is the 
theme of many a farce. Women understand this per- 
fectly; it is their code, and men laugh at it, feeling 
themselves superior. The three quickest ways of com- 
munication, cynics say, are telephone, telegraph, and 
tell-a-woman. Women are notoriously fond of secrets ; 
it is their main chance for romance. No man who 
desires to obtain a woman's affection should forget this. 
Not that it is necessary to initiate her into your affairs, 
but you will, as soon as possible, see that something 
happens which she may consider it wise not to tell. 
Cement her interest with some lively secret that ties 
you to her irrevocably, so that she can not come across 
your photograph or your letter without a knowing 
smile. 

There are those, too, who hold that their own idea 
of a secret's importance is the excuse for divulgence 
or defense, but a man of honor will keep the secret of 
a child as closely as that of an intimate friend. The 
ass who surrounds his every narration with mystery 
and takes needless precautions, has his rights, and 
though you may hear the tale at the next corner you 
are still bound to silence. Some respect their own se- 
crets but not those of others and have no compunctions 
against wheedling out a confidence from a weak ac- 



206 SUB ROSA 

quaintance, thereby becoming accessory to the fact of 
his faithlessness. A secret discovered should be held 
as sacred as a secret confided. 

The desire to tell secrets is one of the most conta- 
gious of diseases, and few of us are immune. Some 
vigorous moral constitutions never succumb, but once 
an epidemic begins, it is hard work stopping it, and 
a secret on the rampage is well nigh irresistible. Tell 
your secret, then, broadcast, and let it have its way 
until it dies out; or else lock it in your own heart. 
But above all confide it not to her who asserts that she 
never has the slightest desire to tell, for there, like a 
seed sown in fertile ground, it will germinate and 
flower long after you have forgotten it, aye, and bring 
forth fruit you never planted. 



PART II 

The Rationale of the Perverse 






WANDERLUST 

THE wanderlust is on me and I must go. Not 
to-morrow, nor even next month, perhaps, but 
the call has come and sooner or later obey I must. 
There is no gipsy blood in me ; I can settle down and 
remain contented for a year or so in one place, but 
then, and usually when I am happiest, with friends, 
habits and my household gods about me, comes the 
mysterious mandate that can not be gainsaid. It is 
like the spell of a magician or the irresistible command 
of a hypnotist to his patient. My parting is fated. I 
may obtain a few weeks' grace, but the summons is 
as powerful as death, and my rest from now on is 
broken, my life becomes a temporary makeshift until 
the duty of travel is begun. 

The whim is far older than civilization, as old as 
mankind. All we know of history begins with migra- 
tion, and ends with it. It has been an incurable fever 
that has periodically infected men's blood from the 
earliest stages, sometimes sweeping whole peoples like 

209 



210 WANDERLUST 

a plague, oftener, in modern life, driving the individual 
from the hive of his fellows. This spirit is conserved 
in its greatest vigor in Anglo-Saxon blood ; elsewhere 
it is sporadic and erratic. 

This lust of roving, the desire for a change of place 
has, in the English race, resolved itself into two oppo- 
site forces whose balanced powers keep our civiliza- 
tion stable. The centrifugal element flings the emi- 
grant from the center to discover and usurp new lands, 
the centripetal draws him back into the focus of life 
to increase and vivify the metropolis. In this way has 
England became Great Britain and a kingdom become 
an empire. The mother country, a center of energy, 
has thrown off colonies, as a sun sends whirling satel- 
lites to revolve about her. And still, despite this grow- 
ing family of nations, London has become more truly 
than ever the pivot of British life and thought. 

But it is not for evefy one to feel these forces. A 
man may have every opportunity to indulge the pas- 
sion, possessing wealth and independence, and never 
know the magic that moves his more sensitive neigh- 
bor, never feel this immemorial desire of wandering. 
The strength of the charm has waned, maybe, and, the 
earth having been encircled, we are not tempted by 
undiscovered lands. Rovers, are, no doubt, atavistic. 



WANDERLUST 211 

Perhaps they have not developed so far as those who 
have taken firmer root. 

Nevertheless, the longing, roving instinct is* inherent 
and potential in all during youth. It may be sup- 
pressed, gratified or outgrown, but the Wanderlust must 
work in us before manhood at least, if not forever 
after. It is a part of our national evolution and we 
as individuals must repeat the history of the race. 
Every boy who runs away from home testifies to its 
immortal power. It is his inheritance from the misty 
ages of his more daring ancestors. We adapt ourselves 
to environment, willy-nilly, and make the best of cir- 
cumstances, but the migrating instinct is ready for the 
first chance to appear and hale us over the plains, over 
the sea. 

It is something more than the mere desire to travel, 
more than the common wish for change that actuates 
the vulgar tourist. To him whom the wanderlust al- 
lures the yearning cdmes as keenly as to the migrating 
bird. While all is warm and pleasant, before the snow 
falls and the ice freezes, something, somehow, tells the 
feathered settler to be away. With him there are ob- 
vious reasons for the voyage, wonderful as are his 
premonitions, but with the human rover the impulse 
is not prudence, not need, nor idle vagary, but a long- 



212 WANDERLUST 

ing, deep as the sea. It is the last ripple of the great 
wave that sent the primitive Aryan on his long journey 
round the world. 

The butterflies of fashion that flit from watering 
place to summer resort and along the well-traveled 
roads of fashionable errantry know nothing of this 
primal instinct. The rover is for the long, strong 
flight, for days and nights of travel, for new altitudes, 
new zones, new stars above him. He must know what 
it means to be "as far as the east is from the west," 
he must feel with his own feet the wondrous curve of 
the globe, he must realize the vastness of space, he 
must journey past the horizon. 

To some the voice calls once, some often echo to the 
cry. Some hear, but can not answer, some hear and 
disobey. But, once indulged, the wanderlust is sure to 
come again. To see loved faces and loved scenes after 
the lapse of years is as powerful an emotional stimulus 
as one can get without undue excitement. 

But the wanderlust brings things more strange than 
new sights and sounds. It exercises a new set of feel- 
ings. Not love itself, nor suffering either, so separ- 
ates one's self from the rest of the universe as the mo- 
tion of travel. Cut off from one's previous world and 
still unattached to the coming situation, one is, for a 



WANDERLUST 213 

brief instant, apart from everything, without t*es while 
yet with memories and hopes. 

And for its last thrill of excitement it has the mys- 
tery of revisitation. On one's return one has a dual 
consciousness. It is the first sight that reveals, not 
only the well-remembered face or site, but the ill-re- 
membered self who saw it long ago. It is like a glance 
in a mirror, or rather, at the portrait of one's self 
painted years before. The shock is too sudden for 
pain, it is over in a flash, but in that glimpse is ecstasy 
— a vague something betwixt sorrow and joy. 

From the frontier to the capital, from the city to the 
outpost — there is a life crowded with emotion ! To see 
new, strange countries, to return to the old ground — 
there is a gamut of sensation ! To part and regain, to 
rove and revisit, to find one's friends still the same and 
the play always different, to go from art to nature 
and from instinct back to culture, and, above all, travel- 
ing this freshening course of sentiment, to find one's 
self meanwhile — there is the rapture of the wanderlust ! 



THE WONDERER 

A PLASTER replica of the Lincoln devil perches 
above my mantel, and behind the ogrillon I have 
written the motto, "I Wonder Why !" I amuse my- 
self by speculating upon the probable sensations of this 
sprite when confronted by the inconsistencies of mod- 
ern manners. But it is not only what he thinks of us 
that interests me ; I am trying to decide what we should 
think of him and his grotesque ilk. 

I was once told that my mind was Gothic. Gothic, I 
suppose, was meant as opposed to the Greek view of 
things; the grotesque as opposed to the beautiful, the 
unique rather than the normal. These two categories 
may not be philosophically definitive, and yet they are, 
in a way, descriptive of states of mental appreciation 
as well as of physical characterization. 

The Gothic mind views at an oblique angle of vision 
■ — it rejoices in the unfamiliar aspect of things. But it 
does not necessarily follow that the pleasure is morbid. 
Surely, to take everything seriously is as one-sided as 
to take everything humorously or as burlesque. Even 

214 



THE WONDERER 215 

gold must be alloyed with base metals to be of prac- 
tical use. 

To the Greek intellect — the seeker after beauty for 
its own sake — everything ugly is scorned. Beauty is 
positive, all else is negative. But to the so-called Gothic 
mind there are other instincts than the esthetic to sat- 
isfy. Rejoicing in beauty, it holds force as higher in 
the scale of attainment, and mystery, even comedy, 
perhaps, as highest of all. 

The term "grotesque," derived from the frescoes in 
Roman grottoes, has come to mean, if not consciously 
humorous, distorted, crude or exaggerated representa- 
tions of life. ,The classic monsters of fable were not, 
however, meant to be humorous. Originally they were 
part of an elaborate symbolis^m. After this occult 
meaning of soul had gone, they still had life in the 
pagan belief in them as marvels. This, too, fled, to 
leave the mere body or form as a decorative accessory 
in dragons, gryphons and the like; and as such the 
classic elements still survive. The drawings by the 
early Christians in the catacombs might as well be 
called grotesques, conforming to both primary and sec- 
ondary meaning of the word, and they were sincerely 
and earnestly intended, however comic they may ap- 
pear to our educated artistic taste. 



216 THE WONDERER 

So, as the colors of some silks change, from differ- 
ent view-points or from different illuminations, as 
virtue itself is often ridiculous, the grotesques of a 
na'if childish faith seem comic to the eyes of art. All 
visual images appear differently in transmitted and in 
reflected light. Who can say which is the truer form ? 
We look on life, one might say, by transmitted light 
when we look with the eyes of faith, seeing the spirit 
shining through the body. We see by reflected light 
when we regard a thing esthetically, flooding the pic- 
ture with our own subjective illumination. 

But there is another interpretation of what may be 
called the Gothic or grotesque view of things. The 
medieval age was the era of wonders and wonderers. 
Nowadays, pervaded by the Hellenic spirit of culture, 
we have well-nigh forgotten how to wonder and can 
only admire or criticize. We anticipate the flying ma- 
chine years before it is invented. The miracle becomes 
almost commonplace. We take each new discovery or 
invention with an "I told you so !" 

But still the Gothic mind (though its possessors be 
few) loves a marvel, the homelier the better, while the 
Hellenic seeks only its ideal of pure beauty. The 
Gothic is the more masculine and virile, rejoicing in the 
vigor and power which produces a variation from type, 



THE WONDERER 217 

even if that variation or exaggeration is gained at the 
expense of other qualities. The other, or Greek, view 
is feminine, if not effeminate, delighting in perfect 
harmony and poise. For the Goth, shock and forcible 
conflict — God against Satan, gargoyle against lamb and 
dove — the animated thrust of springing arch and leap 
of flying buttress. For the Greek, peace and order — 
the exquisite repose and perfection of Olympus, the 
gods all functioned and supreme — the inert, tree-like 
column supporting with dignity the slumbering archi- 
trave. 

To the Greek mind the uneasiness of the grotesque 
is abnormal. But what is the abnormal? Something 
to be wondered at, says the Goth; and the delight of 
the wonderer is not in disease or insanity, not in the 
perversion but in the mystery of its origin. The gro- 
tesque challenges him with a problem. It hints at limi- 
tations to his philosophy. 

Who can not recall the time when all Japanese art 
was scornfully disposed of as grotesque and unworthy 
to be taken seriously ? We saw in it nothing but incom- 
prehensible perspective, impossible attitudes and in- 
credible costumes. But to-day the Japanese masters 
stand without reproach as unrivaled in decorative qual- 
ity and color composition. We have come to find rea- 



218 THE WONDERER 

son in their treatment of art. We know now, too, that 
their carvings, no matter how bizarre the caprice, are 
but examples of the universal symbolism of Japanese, 
and in fact all Oriental art. Not a monkey, nor a 
dragon, nor a human monster but has its place in a 
crystallized esthetic and religious code. 

So, in one or the other of these two ways may it be 
with all grotesques, when we use the term in its fuller 
meaning. Either a new beauty or a new symbolism. 
The grotesque is merely something misunderstood. In- 
stead of ejaculations of disgust or ridicule, those of my 
Gothic mind murmur, reflectively, "I wonder why !" 

Aubrey Beardsley, seeing life as a grotesque, used 
for his elements, instead of the heraldic griffin, sphynx 
and lion rampant, dowagers, fops and coquettes. Dick- 
ens accented his stories with social grotesques in much 
the same way. The drama could not exist without 
such exaggerations. For the grotesque is the develop- 
ment of one trait so far that it is out of drawing. It 
is a reduction to absurdity, as the mathematicians say. 

Wonder, then, that the forgotten art kept alive in 
the Gothic mind, is far more than a primitive, childish 
awe, or a love of mystery. In the natural grotesque 
the modern wonder marvels, not emotionally, but intel- 
lectually. Here, we will say, is an old woman painted 



♦w - 



THE WONDERER 219 

and bedecked with ridiculously vain cunning. To you, 
the Greek, she is merely hideous, but to the Goth a 
thing rather to wonder at than despise. She is a psy- 
chological study. How can she imagine that she can 
charm by these patent falsities and caricatures of 
youth? She is wonderful! More, she is a symbol of 
something universal. She is vanity. 

It goes without saying that these two simple cate- 
gories overlap and blend. The Greek may analyze 
ugliness and find it tinctured with truth, the Goth may 
yearn for the ideal beauty. Both may meet half-way 
between the sublime and the ridiculous and appreciate 
the pathetic. But the Goth knows the better the mean- 
ing of the words, "I wonder why !" 



WHERE IS FANCY BRED? 

IF you empty the common sense out of a man's 
brain what is left? Instinct, you may say, but 
instinct is rather a part of the very blood than of the 
brain — it is a sort of intellectual reflex action. The 
residue in the brain we may call fancy, seeing that it 
is man's uncommon sense. 

Fancy and the imagination have been variously de- 
fined. Coleridge and Wordsworth and Poe have each 
analyzed the two terms, and, though they differ some- 
what in their opinions as to the relative importance of 
the two functions and as to their proper scope, it is 
pretty well understood of fancy, at least, that in its 
processes of forming ideas it is less bound by rational 
modes of thought. Fancy moves on a lighter wing; 
it is governed by laws of association remote from com- 
mon sense ; it is arbitrary and capricious ; it develops 
startling contrasts and caprices; it delights in the un- 
expected. 

Coleridge says that fancy combines and imagination 
creates ; but his explanation does not disagree with the 

220 



WHERE IS FANCY BRED? 221 

above distinction made by Wordsworth. Poe asserted 
that neither, properly speaking, created, since all the 
elements used must come from experience merely used 
in unusual combinations ; his distinction was that im- 
agination must have a secondary suggestive meaning — 
or what we vaguely term the moral sentiment, appli- 
cable to human conduct. 

A trace of fancy we all have, no doubt. Each of us 
has his vagaries or thoughts that leap outside of con- 
scious experience. It is like the minute quantity of 
gold-salt that is always found in sea water. Slight as 
its importance or utility appears to be, this hidden 
precious particle acts and reacts in most of our affairs. 
For fancy has more than a literary value. It not 
only creates brilliant images, but, acting as an unnoticed 
cause, it spurs us in many accustomed pursuits. 

If we turn this tiny jewel of fancy toward the light 
we see many different facets. Its effects and color 
may be illustrated by many illustrations and metaphors. 
Imagination is a mosaic of bits of life arranged in 
pattern — fancy has its own design, its own mysterious 
origin, as beautiful and as surprising as a snow crystal. 
Imagination is like a lofty building reared to meet the 
sky — fancy is a balloon that soars at the wind's will. 
Fancy is to imagination as dream is to reverie, as play 



222 WHERE IS FANCY BRED? 

is to work, as smoking is to eating, as mathematics is 
to history, as humor is to precept, as love is to friend- 
ship, as the Book of Revelations is to the Book of 
Proverbs. 

Perhaps these similes may illustrate the functions 
of the two processes in our daily life, and whether my 
definition of fancy is correct or not, there is at least, 
a fundamental difference between the terms of each 
of these antitheses. One is symbolized by the boy play- 
ing at marbles, the other by the girl playing with her 
doll. One is the radical idealistic force in the human 
couple, the other the conservative and practical. One 
persists ever in a wilful experiment and novel essay, 
the other works toward a more immediate and acces- 
sible goal. 

Fancy has usually been considered a lower form of 
imagination, something childish, impracticable and fu- 
tile, if not actually mischievous. Ruskin says fancy 
is like a squirrel, content to whirl the wheel of his cage, 
while imagination, like a pilgrim, must perforce walk 
the earth. Even by Wordsworth, who first marked its 
limits as being more vague and airy, fancy is consid- 
ered something less than imagination. But is this a 
proper conception? Fancy, like my grain of gold in 



WHERE IS FANCY BRED? 223 

sea water, is to be traced in all great work. Increase 
this sane percentage and the work is overbalanced, a 
saturated solution of fancy makes madness. But fancy 
is an inspiration ; it is the spring that sets off the imag- 
ination, as the trigger fires the gun; it is an impulse 
from a world outside. As the wild notions of al- 
chemy started scientific chemical research, as the dog- 
matic asservation of astrology set Galileo on his voy- 
age of celestial discovery, as the fountain of youth led 
Ponce De Leon into a new continent, so has fancy ever 
furnished the seed for growths beyond itself. 

What is the mainspring of love, if not a sudden 
illogical desire, a divine fastidiousness, a mythical, im- 
possible soul incarnated by a dreamer into an accessible 
human body? The damsel "in maiden meditation 
fancy free" is still in possession of her common sense 
— see how the old world "f ancy" bears me out ! 

In literature the force of fancy's initiative is clear 
in all of the books that have stood the test of time. The 
Arabian Nights 9 Entertainment is sheer, fancy, and 
the immortal popularity of these tales is a sure proof 
that fancy pure and simple is no secondary function of 
the intellect. In Gulliver's Travels we have, per- 
haps, fancy and imagination combined in a better pro- 



224 WHERE IS FANCY BRED? 

portion — with the result that as long as the language 
endures this book will live. The initial impetus was 
fancy. Given, a nation of individuals much larger or 
much smaller than we are — there is your fancy. To 
prove again, with these fanciful elements, the great 
truths of human nature — there is your imagination. 
The political satire which justified it in its beginning 
has rotted away, and the story, loved for the story's 
sake, has endured. 

As we look at love and literature, so we may look at 
religion. The same force is at work, call it what you 
will. Increase the modicum, and, as you get insanity 
from the exaggeration of fancy, so you get supersti- 
tion from religion. The earliest ideas of the super- 
nal world were all sheer fancy ; for fancy, and not im- 
agination, is characteristic of childhood, whether we 
regard it in the race or the individual. 

So the child in us survives. The same extraneous 
force that leads the boy to imagine a chair a locomo- 
tive, and from that superimposed condition to ratioc- 
inate along the lines of his experience, is to be seen in 
works of art. It is the essence of play to assume some- 
thing and then proceed rationally. The premise is 
fancy, the deduction imagination. This method is well 
illustrated in comic opera. Accept as fact that a per- 



WHERE IS FANCY BRED? 225 

son is a "mascot" or a half fairy, as in Iolanthe, and 
the rest is all logic. 

If all this is true, should it not prove that the work 
of fancy is more enduring than that of the imagina- 
tion? It is a recognized fact that the "novel of man- 
ners" can not keep its popularity except during the era 
in which the manners of which it treats are under- 
stood. The Arabian Nights and Gulliver's Travels 
have proved what salt fancy has to keep books fresh, 
though Robinson Crusoe would seem to disprove the 
theorem. But, realistic as it is to the point of torture, 
Crusoe is as far out of our experience as the scenes 
of Bagdad, and, as such, appeals to fancy. So will 
Kipling's Jungle Book last when his other stories are 
regarded as merely literary curiosities. 

Fancy, though in some manifestations like intuition, 
is not anarchistic. It leaps away from logic, but it fol- 
lows its own creative laws. It endures in poetry, in 
music, where it is freest and safest, in myth and folk 
lore, not the product of an epoch, but of the immem- 
morial yearning for emancipation from custom and 
habit in thought. Architecture, the noblest work of 
imagination, decays; but fancy, the immortal part of 
us, misunderstood, ill-controlled, is a fire that shall 
always find fuel. It is the eternal, irresistible desire to 



226 WHERE IS FANCY BRED? 

create something wholly unmodified by temporary en- 
vironment, local color, or the chance effect of light and 
shade. It is the grasp of the child for something be- 
yond his reach, the quest of the star in some world 
beyond our ken. 



THE DIVINE FASTIDIOUSNESS 

WE LEARN the art of loving as we do all 
other arts, by practise and experience. One 
must be a genius to do it well at first sight. Poets have 
conspired to throw a glamour over the initial essay, 
however, and we are used to thinking of it with ro- 
mantic enthusiasm. We are told, for instance, that we 
know nothing worth while save what we learned dur- 
ing the brief hour of youthful love. 

The first passion has, of course, a freshness and 
beauty that we can not deny. It is abandoned, reck- 
less, thoughtless ; and yet, if the truth be told, it is very 
easily contented. It embodies its ideals in the form 
that comes nearest to hand. It is the victim of propin- 
quity. We remember our puppy-loves with a tear, per- 
haps, but nevertheless with a smile, too, for the lost 
illusion. It served, while it lasted, as an escape valve 
for our mounting emotions, but it did not much matter 
upon whom its force; was spent. It was pretty, but 
was it art ? 

Most persons have loved at least thrice. We must 

227, 



228 THE DIVINE FASTIDIOUSNESS 

leave out of the question the victims of ordinary do- 
mestic bliss, and those who are content to let well 
enough alone, concerning ourselves with those who are 
not married, or who have married late, for these are 
the true artists. The initiation admits one to a world 
of faery; we enter through that simple first love, and 
are surprised to find what mysteries lie beyond. En- 
lightened, we take another degree in wonder, and at 
last, knowing now what may be, but realizing the rarity 
of the impossible, we calmly but rather hopelessly 
await the ineffable. In first love we learn power, in 
second, perhaps, we learn skill. And in the last we 
combine both with a divine fastidiousness to make life 
marvelous. 

Why should we expect to learn the whole creed of 
love from a single lesson, or from a single master? 
It is not often that we find one person who makes 
the triple appeal of mental, moral and physical attrac- 
tion. We may love a bright but homely woman, but, 
sweet as that may be, it is certainly not the poetic ideal 
of love, for the perfect woman is beautiful. So we 
may surrender to the charms of one who is clever 
and unscrupulous, or even to a beautiful and stupid 
girl. Each one teaches something of the divine mys- 
tery, but what poet would call either experience ideal ? 



THE DIVINE FASTIDIOUSNESS 229 

Like a poem, love should, to become a classic, embody 
a noble meaning intelligently expressed in beautiful 
form. 

But, even when these three attributes are blended, 
when the man and the woman are perfectly mated, 
when Daphnis meets Chloe, there is a finesse, a knowl- 
edge of the game, an artistic training that is necessary 
to make of a passion a poem. It is not so easy to 
make love well, as most persons think ! 

Women usually understand this better than men. 
They have given the subject more profound thought, 
for it is said to be their whole existence. They are, 
in short, oftener of the artistic temperament and can 
"see color," can appreciate nuances, can criticize tech- 
nique. ■ No matter how much they may love, they are 
still more in love with loving. If they will not al- 
ways admit, they are always able to see, just where 
their lovers fall short in their business. Women know 
every move; they resent false strokes, slight discords 
and blunders. Mortification they can not forgive. There 
is a stage of the game between wooing and winning 
that most women would have indefinitely prolonged. 
The finer of them are idealists and abhor definiteness. 
They live for the glory of the relation and not for 
its immediate advantage or concrete enjoyment. They 



230 THE DIVINE FASTIDIOUSNESS 

live in to-morrow and not to-day — and often in a to- 
morrow that they hope will never come. 

All this a man succeeds in learning, after a while, 
and, if he is worthy, he grows adept in the art of 
wringing from the moment all that it holds, instead 
of plunging on to reach a definite end. Not to miss 
any one of the subtle, transient moods of feeling — 
that is the reward of love at thirty-five. For most 
men must have a marvel, patent and notorious. They 
think that the black art of the Indian fakir, who makes 
a grain of wheat grow to full maturity in a few min- 
utes, is more wonderful than the development of the 
same seed in the warm bosom of mother earth, with 
its slow and gradual evolution of sprout and stalk, 
leaf, bud and blossom. 

This difference of desire is the cause of much of 
the misunderstanding between lovers, but occasionally 
a man understands the woman's belief that every stage 
on the way is wonderfully interesting, and sometimes 
a woman understands the man's belief that that prog- 
ress in affection is not a limited journey toward a 
finite end, but that, no matter how fast one goes, the 
goal is infinitely distant. 

Growing older, we demand more ; more strength and 
more delicacy of expression. Love, like music, has 



THE DIVINE FASTIDIOUSNESS 231 

its overtones, its chords and harmonies. It is not un- 
accompanied melody, as we thought in our youthful 
days when we were content to whistle upon an oaten 
reed in the green fields of innocence, — when a braid 
of hair and a saucy look sufficed us. Now we need 
the interweaving of themes; we feel the appeal of 
differing manifestations of sexual attraction. But 
these subtleties of feeling do not efface the primary 
impulse, any more than an accompaniment effaces the 
singer's air. They are but the psychological reflexes 
and echoes. If our heart is satisfied, should our joy 
be the less because our brains also take their share 
of pleasure? 

It is not till late that these refinements of possibility 
are understood. One person shows us one side and 
another a different illumination, and she who is falsest 
may know the best what love should be. So, bit by 
bit, one's ideal is built up, and she who teaches us 
how to love is as great as she who loves us. And 
then, if some one steps forth from the shadow to em- 
body that ideal, her claim is announced, not by won- 
derful coincidences of opinion or taste, but by trifles, 
light as air, by which all else is interpreted. 

It does not mean half so much, then, that we both 
appreciate Brahms or Wagner, that we hold the same 



232 THE DIVINE FASTIDIOUSNESS 

social prejudices or have the same polite code, as that, 
on that first evening I met you, you reached out your 
hand for an unmentioned book at the precise instant 
of time when I was about to hand it to you — that you 
never take sugar in your coffee — that you, too, have 
always loved and understood that line in Stevenson's 
fable: "And in my thought one thing is as good as 
another, in this world, and a shoe of a horse will do !" 
For love is but the ultimate refinement of sentiment. 
It is romance, freed from the obvious methods of ro- 
mance. It is an infinity so great that even the most 
divine of human moods and situations fail to express 
it perfectly. And so it is that we do not need dra- 
matic situations or tense moods of feeling — neither 
moonlight in Italy nor double suicides — to embody its 
ideals. It is so great that mere trifles will serve as 
well. A glance may be as full of meaning as the most 
fervid caress. No detail is too trifling to symbolize 
its magic mysteries. A shoe of a horse will do ! 






THE SPIRIT OF THE RACE 

COULD I have my one dearest, most impossible, 
wish granted, I think I should choose to have 
a talk with Methuselah. I do not mean the patriarch, 
the son of Enoch, but some modern representative, 
blessed with his years, and gifted, we must suppose, 
with a proportionate amount of wisdom. Think of 
the experience of a man nine hundred and sixty-nine 
years of age ! He would have to have been born in the 
year of our Lord 934, and, if an Englishman, while 
^Ethelstan sat on the throne of Britain. What dynas- 
ties he would have seen rise and fall, what races he 
would have watched fighting, dominating and assim- 
ilating in his native land! 

But it would not be as a mere historian that I would 
care to listen to his conversation. Did the young Shem 
(who was nineteen when the old man died) ask his 
great-grandfather of wars and chieftains, of the way 
to herd sheep and the customs of the Land of Nod, 
or of the giants that were in the earth in those days? 
No doubt he did; but I would care little for such 
tales. I have many more intimate and personal con- 

233 



234 THE SPIRIT OF THE RACE 

i 

fessions to wring from him! I would ask him about 
myself — and Celestine. 

For my modern Methuselah would stand for the 
Spirit of the Race, as Schopenhauer names it — and, 
even more, for the Spirit of Human Nature, and 
would be able to perceive the essential differences be- 
tween epochs. As it is now, without him, the best 
we can do is mere conjecture. We assume that human 
nature has changed but little in a thousand years ; but 
still, that doctrine is as unprovable — yet as useful, too 
— as the wave theory of light, or the atomic theory 
of matter. It is the principle upon which all inter- 
pretation of history rests. Taking it by and large, 
the hypothesis is undoubtedly true. And yet, when 
we analyze the history of manners, we are confronted 
by two almost contradictory tendencies. We find sur- 
prising likenesses and differences. The present is both 
friend and foe to the past. 

Human emotions are evolved, are they not ? While 
the great impulses, such as love, hatred, jealousy, self- 
ishness and bigotry do not change materially, yet in 
the best specimens of the race these grosser passions 
are gradually refined, and more delicate ones devel- 
oped. In time mankind has grown, on the whole, more 
subtle, more altruistic, more self-conscious and analyt- 



THE SPIRIT OF THE RACE 235 

ical. We think we are indubitably more sensitive and 
charitable, and we point to our hospitals and asylums 
and schools as evidence. A few leaders, we think, 
struggle out of the mist of superstition and the dark- 
ness of egoism, and progressing, lift out the rest. In 
this sense we consider that we are different from our 
far-off forebears, in that we are more at one with each 
other. We call it civilization. The standard, at least, 
is different, whether it is higher or not. 

But, on the other hand, we see that all so-called 
development is cyclic. The old fashions recur, the 
ends of the centuries resemble one another, ancient 
eras of low morals are duplicated in modern times, 
new conditions are found, upon investigation, to be 
but replicas of bygone situations. We quote the 
Preacher, "There is no new thing under the sun." 
The pendulum of time brings the race inevitably back 
to the old points. 

It is easy enough to understand that, in the case of 
the race, these two points of view may be reconciled, 
for we have only to remember that cyclic development 
is truly illustrated, not by the pendulum, but by the 
helix, the form of the screw. Thus, though we come 
round again and again to the same view-point, each 
revolution takes us a step higher. But how are we 



236 THE SPIRIT OF THE RACE 

to apply this to human nature? Is our own blind fury 
at a wrong done to ourselves any different from the 
fury of Cain against Abel? We give way to pride, 
to jealousy, and to love as did men of yore, perhaps 
not with such abandon, but the spirit of the impulse 
is the same. And were there not men of piety, char- 
ity and loving-kindness of old? What, then, is dif- 
ferent? What is true modernity? Methuselah alone 
can tell us ! 

What we think of, perhaps, as most typical of our 
time, what seems to be unique, is the growing differ- 
ence in the relations between the sexes, culminating 
in the conditions prevalent in the United States. Was 
such frank comradeship and equality without senti- 
ment ever possible before? Certain phases of French 
and Greek history suggest an analogy, but, if so, the 
swing of the pendulum is wide indeed ! It seems im- 
possible to conceive of such modern sexless familiarity 
between men and women as possible ever before in 
the world. The influence of sex has been the one 
unchanging factor that has underlain the history of 
mankind, for it is the Spirit of Race itself, seeking 
self -perpetuation. Have we then, in the West, a phase 
of human nature being developed that even Methuse- 



THE SPIRIT OF TTTE RACE 237 

lah himself would not understand? Would he be able 
to advise me in regard to my friendship with Celestine ? 

For, of all subjects, it is certainly of women that 
I would talk to him. I would show him a few — not 
many — of my friends, and say, "Was there ever her 
like before?" Perhaps he knew one when he was a 
youngster of three hundred and fifty; if so, what a 
talk could we not have ! How many things he could 
explain ! It turns my head to think of it ! 

For each one of us occasionally stumbles across a 
marvel. We have all been actors or witnesses at sit- 
uations that seemed impossible. My instinctive cry, 
then, is for that wise old man. Oh, would he under- 
stand? -What balm would be his talk, with anecdote 
of this or that strange woman, to illustrate a quirk 
of femininity! How delicious his story of my own 
ancestor, some twenty generations removed, who acted 
so strangely like me on his day of days ! 

For he would know me, too, that weird old man, 
and see a thousand forebears in me. A trick of the 
hand here, a weak yielding of the brain there, and 
he would put me together, a composite of his old-time 
acquaintances. He would watch the atavism appear, 
but, bewildered by such a mixture of innumerable qual- 



238 THE SPIRIT OF THE RACE 

ities, how could he ever predict my actions ? Perhaps 
he would talk to me as eagerly as I to him, curious to 
see how John and Tristram, Peleg, Hannah and Ethel- 
wyn warred within my blood. 

But, really, it does not matter. Life is wonderful 
enough. With him to talk to, I would marvel that 
certain things could happen twice in an eon, and he 
would doubtless say, "Is this violet you have discov- 
ered any less beautiful when you think that there are 
myriads of flowerets as fair?" So, without him, when 
the impossibly strange or the incredibly perfect thing 
happens, I make my wish as one who sees the flight 
of a falling star, and thank Heaven that I can glory 
in the wonder of it. 



BLACK COFFEE 

NOTHING we drink is quite so dark as black 
coffee. See how the liquid in the cup forms a 
little concave mirror, in which is reflected the light 
over the table! By tipping the cup, or agitating it 
slightly, the image of the lamp dances in and out of 
wonderful arabesque patterns, filling the circle with 
queer designs like Japanese mons. They flash in 
changing shapes, one melting into another with the 
rapidity of lightning, a fascinating network of zigzag 
lines. 

So, too, for one sensitive to a certain sort of coffee 
intoxication, there is a mental arabesque of quaint 
thoughts that is stirred into life by the stimulus of 
the beverage. Coffee occasionally has the curious ef- 
fect of magnifying common things and of making 
slight moods and incidents picturesque. In the coarser 
and grosser emotions of every day the finer, subtler 
essences of life escape us, blotted out by occurrences 
of greater importance, as the stars are blotted out by 
the sun. But some conditions magnify or distort these 

239 



240 BLACK COFFEE 

lesser wonders, and attract our attention vividly to 
unconsidered trifles of thought. The dark, for in- 
stance, is such a medium, casting an occult ray upon 
fancies we are usually unconscious of. So, too, is the 
influence of sex capable of coloring our mood, and 
we think quicker and talk better. Under the spell of 
music we often lose ourselves in vagaries, and spin 
fantasies of cobweb imaginings. And so, in its own 
curious way, does black coffee at times induce abnor- 
mal mental states, finer and more elusive than the 
intoxication of alcohol, more nearly resembling the 
restless intellectual exaltation of physical fatigue. 

But these tiny impalpable thoughtlets are with us 
all the time, no doubt, though we do not notice them 
in their subconscious field of play. So, too, are the 
motes of dust present continually in the air we breathe 
and look through. Darken your room, however, and 
admit but a single shaft of sunshine, and behold these 
vagrom inconsequent atoms of matter writhe before 
your eyes, compelling your regard! The air is 
strangely populated with life and activity, space is 
filled where you thought only emptiness existed, and 
particles undreamed of swim into your ken. In the 
same way does the microscope reveal new worlds for 
us to marvel at. Every drop of water swarms with 



BLACK COFFEE 241 

infinite energy. Size, then, becomes merely relative, 
life is present in and through everything. What is 
real, and what fancy? Who can say? 

We can not, of course, endure the intensity of feel- 
ing necessary to comprehend or consciously to think 
of this every time we drink or listen or breathe. We 
must use the telescope, too, at times, and seek out 
truths of a higher order. But to all who feel keenly, 
and live thoroughly, the microscopic mood must come 
at times, whether they drink coffee to induce it or not. 

There is a natural reaction in all extremes. One 
can scarcely be simple without being subtle, too, for 
then one plays, like a child, pretending, for the nonce, 
that details are important, reasoning about trifles, 
studying them, to discover laws and shades of mean- 
ing. One can not be possessed of a true sense of 
humor without being serious in purpose as well, for 
it takes as much skill and concentration of force to 
manipulate jackstraws as to juggle heavy weights. But 
to the common herd any given incident is of a cer- 
tain definite grade of importance ; it will hold just 
so much sentiment or feeling or pleasure, and no more. 
Things are of themselves sad, absurd or ugly, and can 
be nothing else, no matter how one regards them. But 
the finer mind is constantly varying its altitude, look- 



242 BLACK COFFEE 

ing over and overlooking, looking under and under- 
standing things. 

Nothing is of itself important or meaningless. One 
can invest insignificant minutiae with new values (as 
when one finds a tone of voice more pregnant than 
the words embodying it), or one can discover seem- 
ingly large and obviously remarkable actions to be 
mere accidents of conduct (as when one finds a favor 
less valuable through having a lower or lesser motive 
than has some common friendly sacrifice). We must 
become alternately Lilliputians and Brobdingnagians to 
keep alive to all that is vital. 

But to produce this posture, this delicate, sensitive 
alertness of mental action by artificial means, is dan- 
gerous. Like any other complicated piece of mechan- 
ism, the human body and the human brain is con- 
structed to run at a certain normal or natural rate 
of speed, with a certain amount of fuel. Like any 
other machine, if this velocity is intensified, the whole 
apparatus is racked and strained, if not ruined. As 
children love to pull the clock weights to make the 
wheels move faster, so men stimulate their systems 
with intoxicants for the love of excitement that 
swifter living produces. And so even this cup of 
black rofifee may have its dangers. 



BLACK COFFEE 243 

Yet, it is not this exotic mental state that is wrong ; 
it is merely the method of producing it. We are all 
fond of excitement, for excitement is but a form of 
wonder. Wonder is the eager regard of the mysteri- 
ous or the novel in life, the thrill of joy or astonish- 
ment at the new thing, whether it be the novelty of 
seeing well-known persons in new situations, or new 
persons in well-known situations. The novelty in sub- 
tleties is the discovery of great laws governing small 
occurrences, or great occurrences in the control of 
small familiar rules. It sometimes takes a deal of 
living to discover the importance of our childhood's 
maxims; we pass through tremendous sufferings, and 
find that all we have learned is that "a stitch in time 
saves nine." Intoxication paints life in new colors 
as wonderfully though often less valuably. It is the 
cheap and easy way to Wonderland. It admits one 
to mysteries, but it is the illegitimate sister of Imag- 
ination, the mother of Insanity. None the less it is 
wonderful. 

However, we are more than mere pieces of mech- 
anism, for we are not automatic. We are moved by 
something outside of ourselves, and, when properly 
adjusted and poised, responsive to something we call 
Truth, whether we appreciate it as great or small. Let 



244 BLACK COFFEE 

us compare ourselves rather to magnetic compasses, 
whose sensitized needles are mysteriously drawn to 
some secret magnetic pole. We can simulate this at- 
traction by artificial means, and cause interesting aber- 
rations of our ordinary psychical state by the use of 
stimulants, in the same way that the sensitized needle 
may be drawn about by moving a piece of iron in its 
magnetic field. But with such extraordinary influence, 
of course, the instrument is rendered less sensitive to 
the finer and more delicate of natural impulses. In 
its natural, rightful state it perceives with accuracy 
the tiniest promptings of the subtle forces which ra- 
diate from the mysterious North. 

No more cofifee, then, thank you — I think this one 
cup has been quite sufficient for my present purpose ; 
I have been subtle long enough. 



THE GARGOYLE'S KIN 

IF THERE is anything in the doctrine of reincar- 
nation, I must have skipped the Renaissance. It 
came when my day of life was done and time had 
come for rest. While Art was awakening in Italy, 
I, with my Gothic ideals, was falling asleep in De- 
vachan, clasping a gargoyle to my breast. The great 
light of modernity rose over Europe and I never knew, 
nor even dreamed. And now I am aroused too late 
for participation in that morning's thrill. It is already 
high noon. 

For we must all instinctively, even unconsciously, 
choose our own in matters of art as we do in ques- 
tions of friendship. The foundations of taste are 
builded on the unseen mysteries of character too 
deeply to be explained. Why one is drawn to Egypt 
and another to Polynesia is as dark a secret as why 
friends marry as they do — as unsolvable as another's 
choice of raiment. 

We each have a sort of esthetic compass within us, 
pointing toward the particular pole about which our 

245 



246 THE GARGOYLE'S KIN 

emotions revolve. Education, environment and per- 
sonal magnetism, however, all affect this sensitive 
needle, and it is often drawn aside. We are told, for 
instance, that Japanese art is wonderfully to be ad- 
mired, and our tastes are violently forced in that di- 
rection. We are condemned for liking primary colors, 
and recommended to the tones of faded canvas, the 
texture and line of sackcloth. We are at the hazard 
of many didactic disturbances, but, despite all this, our 
needle asserts itself in time, for it is moved by a 
subtler, stronger force than precept or example. The 
oft-quoted Philistine who doesn't "know much about 
art, but does know what he likes," is reflected in us 
all. A Jew may learn to eat pork, but it is not his 
proper food, for all that. 

So there is an intrinsic trend of taste for every one 
who is gifted with emotions. We are attracted, re- 
pelled or indifferent. We recognize a kinship between 
another's purpose and our own sympathetic delight. 
We may have been groping in the dark, or exploring 
a gallery of horrors, not knowing what we sought, 
when, of a sudden, we encounter our own kind of 
thing, something our own hearts illuminate spontane- 
ously, and we are profoundly satisfied at last. It may 
be nothing that conforms to the conventions of good 



THE GARGOYLE'S KIN 247 

taste. But it is ours, none the less. Many are the oc- 
cult canons of one's secret likes. 

Beauty is not objective, despite the efforts of thou- 
sands of dogmatists to make it so. Beauty is a form 
of emotional energy. It is a divine electricity; it has 
its polarity and vibrations, its conductors and non-con- 
ductors. And it has its shocks and sparks, too, when 
the esthetic impulse leaps across space, and tears 
through intellect, seeking, in one bright flash of joy 
to find its interpreter and establish the circuit in a 
current of emotion. You or I may not be affected by 
this or that particular work of art, for we are keyed 
to a different pitch of feeling, but we may watch in 
another's face the lightning smile and hear the break- 
ing of his soul in thunder when like meets like. 

What strange actions and reactions are set up in 
travel, we all know. Even before we start, we are 
prescient, and say, "I shall love Italy and loathe Switz- 
erland !" We feel, in anticipation, unreasoned prefer- 
ences for particular nations, special epochs, single 
schools. 

So we pick and choose, too, not only from the vast 
treasures of the beautiful, but from other emotions 
as well. For we are not all endowed with a deep or 
sincere passion even for the beautiful of our own or- 



248 THE GARGOYLE'S KIN 

der. The esthetic qualities of things merge one into an- 
other by insensible degrees, and as our taste selects 
between different kinds of beauty, so our feeling se- 
lects between different emotions, of which beauty is 
but one sort. The gamut runs through the pathetic, 
the awful, terrible, and horrible to ugliness itself, and 
thence round the circle through the grotesque and 
comic side back to pathos and beauty again. Any 
one quality may make its especial appeal. 

Indeed, it was not beauty which, in nature or art, 
first laid hold on me. I did not notice, as a child, 
the tender charm of a landscape; but if it contained 
awfulness, as a mountain crest in cloud — or terror, 
as the wolf-like charges of angry surges on the shore 
— or horror, as the sheer fierce fall of a perpendicular 
cliff — then my soul was moved in wonder. It would 
be scarcely just to say that I enjoyed ugliness, but a 
certain grotesque sort moved me, not only with a mere 
intellectual interest, but with a distinctly emotional ap- 
peal. It was an unreasoned comprehension of the 
purpose impelling the manifestation. 

And so, feeling an inborn taste for this tart tang in 
art, this wild, unkempt habit in stone, I can not breathe 
freely the air of the Renaissance. My era was that 
of a harsher, sterner effort. Dark ages, if you like, 



THE GARGOYLE'S KIN 249 

but eras of dream and vision as well, and haunted 
by black spirits and gray. We did not try to explain 
our ideals in human terms; the flying buttress, the 
springing arch, and the monstrous ogrillon were of a 
more passionate symbolism, awe and aspiration, fault 
and fancy rather than the consciousness of perfected 
design. The priestcraft still guarded its lore. 

Yes, the Renaissance, with all its humanistic mar- 
vels, leaves me cold. Its rhythms, proportions and 
ratios, its ordered fenestration, its modules and har- 
monies, its reflexes of ancient ideals, its concrete vis- 
ualizations of myth and legend — even the fine enthusi- 
asm and buoyancy one reads into it in every direction, 
letters, social science, commerce and discovery — all 
seem too literal and specific to awaken in me anything 
but a mere cool observation of results. 

To have been a part of all this upspringing life, this 
assertion of free personality — oh! that would have 
been wonderful. I can understand it all, intellectually, 
and feel the last soundless reverberations of that bell- 
like call to endeavor. But it is all accomplished, and 
I can not share the Renaissance with my eyes alone. 
My hands itch for participation ; and I did never carve 
a classic capital, I know. 

But with the mystic sublimity of the Gothic art my 



250 THE GARGOYLE'S KIN 

touch is livelier. There are still spirits imprisoned 
in the cold gray stone for such as I ! The perpen- 
dicular uplifts of wall, the arcs of vaulted roofs are 
based on something that is deep-seated in my soul as 
well. The lost secret of foliated tracery, and, still 
more, the lore of uncouth gargoyles seems at times 
almost ready to be divulged to me, could I but dream 
that dream again. 

So the mysteries of taste lie pregnant or fallow in 
our inner selves. For you, Florence, for me, Oxford, 
and for another, perhaps, the geometric charms of the 
Alhambra. There is no first, no last, in the law of 
esthetics. 

And, so thinking, the fancy came to me of one even 
more crass and ignorant than I, narrow, provincial, 
from St. Louis or Milwaukee, maybe, his esthetic sense 
never yet awakened, who, happening in Paris, f ellowed 
for an hour w T ith the stone monsters of Notre Dame. 
A barren, sordid soul, hitherto dead to any fine altru- 
istic emotion, what thrill of feeling might not come 
to him — what undeveloped power kindle at sight of 
these unheard-of beasts carved by the daring, won- 
dering hands of the dark ages? How the very mys- 
tery of their creation, incomprehensible to so many, 
might speak to him and awaken him even from esthetic 



THE GARGOYLE'S KIN 251 

death. Beauty, poetry and music might have failed 
to pierce his soul, but, hearing this message aright, 
feeling the assertion of an affinity that no lesson in 
his barren Anglo-Saxon West had taught, he would 
crouch shamefacedly at this whisper from the past. 
Idle vagrom fancies long denied, crude dreams dis- 
owned would overcome him, and, knowing now that 
men had seen his visions, and dared to give them ut- 
terance, he might go down a new man — he and I of 
the same cult ! 



THE FRUIT OF THE MOMENT 

NOTHING, perhaps, is so hard to define as pleas- 
ure, which is usually considered the most im- 
portant thing in the world. Not only does it vary as 
between individuals, but it varies with the individual. 
Any given act may be pleasant to some and painful 
to others, and also it may be to any one person some- 
times pleasant and sometimes painful. There is no 
constant quantity of sensation which we may employ 
as a unit of pleasure in estimating enjoyment or dis- 
ease. 

Pleasure is a variable quality of things, and is subtly 
affected by mysterious tides and currents. On the 
Fahrenheit thermometer, you will remember, the "boil- 
ing point" of water is placed at two hundred and twelve 
degrees. But this is, of course, the temperature at which 
water will boil at sea level. If one ascends a mountain, 
the boiling point falls. If there were such a thing as a 
pleasurometer to mark degrees of emotion or enjoy- 
ment, we would find something analogous to be true. 
Pain being the negative of pleasure, we may imagine an 

252 



THE FRUIT OF THE MOMENT 253 

apparatus showing one at the bottom, the other at the 
top of a scale. At intervals might be placed Agony, 
Discomfort, Annoyance, Boredom, Peace, Enjoyment, 
Rapture, and so on. But it would, after all, be a slid- 
ing scale, needing constant adjustment; and if we took 
the neutral mark, half-way between pleasure and pain, 
as our boiling point, we would find that it shifted, 
according to our mental altitude, as the thermometer's 
boiling point shifts according to physical altitude. 

The mere question of health is, perhaps, the most 
important factor affecting our pleasure. To the in- 
valid confined to his bed the slightest movement is 
agony. When he is well he rejoices in exertion and 
exercise. The act is the same act in either case, but 
it does not contain the same quantity of pleasure at 
one time as at another. The hardy Anglo-Saxon's 
ideal of pleasure is violent exertion, a prolonged strain 
of the muscles, a determined test of endurance. He 
climbs the mountain with an incredible expense of 
fatigue, he pierces the tropic jungle, he explores polar 
ice,, suffering, starving, roasting or freezing; and he 
calls this sport. How can one analyze such enjoy- 
ment as this, which at first glance seems plainly to be 
nothing but pain ? 

The Englishman will tell you, doubtless, that all his 



254 THE FRUIT OF THE MOMENT 

suffering is repaid by the moment of achievement, the 
first flash of success, or, if not success, the satisfac- 
tion of accomplishing a definite plan. The author 
struggles as manfully, and suffers, in his travail of 
bookbirth, in his agonies of creation, mental throes 
as keen as the physical tortures of the explorer. Why 
does he so suffer? What desire urges him to such 
pain? He thinks, no doubt, that the satisfaction of 
completing his work is sufficient reward, and that the 
something which bids him toil on is the word "finis." 
But this can not be so. There is one thing more. 

The pleasure of pleasures is being in love. Moral- 
ists will tell us, no doubt, that being in love is but a 
triumph of egoism, the climax of vanity, the pinnacle 
of the pride of individual exclusive possession. But, 
nevertheless, we have a majority on our side when we 
say that being in love is, after all, as near earthly bliss 
as is possible, and it is the majorities who make the 
dictionaries. And if we take sides with the poets, 
rather than with those who preach a more rarified 
ethics, we may perhaps learn something of where 
pleasure lies. 

The old allegorical picture of the Pursuit of Pleas- 
ure is, however obvious, a fine bit of satire. We do, 



THE FRUIT OF THE MOMENT 255 

indeed, pursue pleasure, and see it usually just be- 
yond our grasp. We are so used to considering ac- 
tions as separate from results, that we instinctively 
work for the end's sake rather than for the work's 
sake. Is this not futile? What is, after all, really 
worth while of itself in this wild, whirling world? 
What reward, when given, is more than dust in the 
mouth? The rewards of effort are proverbially mea- 
ger, and usually attained too late for enjoyment. 

The lesson in this is easy. We are to derive our 
enjoyment, not solely from the reward, but from the 
effort; we are to take our pleasure, not only in the 
destination, not only upon the summit, but at every 
step on the road. 

"Not the quarry, but the chase, 
Not the laurel, but the race, 
Not the hazard, but the play — 
Make me, Lord, enjoy alway!" 

Is it not so, too, with love ? And yet what impatient 
lover understands ! To him there is a definite climax 
of achievement, a moment of capture and surrender, 
a concrete gain. He considers the kiss as rapture, 
and all that fine delicate emotion and counterplay of 



256 THE FRUIT OF THE MOMENT 

desires and sympathies, of vibrations and magnetic 
waves, of subtle psychical reactions, as merely the 
preparatory effort — something necessary, but to be got 
through with as soon as possible ! 

This he thinks; but he does not know, for, were it 
really so, he would never have attained the kiss, or 
the hand. So does the mountain climber consider his 
struggle upward as toil, and his conquest of the top- 
most peak the moment of his reward. But it is not so. 
Did he not enjoy every step, and rejoice in it, he would 
never reach the top. Surely he must enjoy it so, even 
though he be mistaken in his analysis. For he may 
win a victory in precisely the reverse way. Suppose, 
after climbing almost to the top, the strain becomes 
so great that the pain far outbalances the pleasure, or 
that a return would bring a greater satisfaction than 
a dogged persistency. If he be a true man he will 
have the courage to retrace his steps, and not win a 
futile and barren reward at the crest. 

To take each step on the way with thoroughness, 
and with conscious joy in the taking of it, that is liv- 
ing one's life intelligently and sanely and to the best 
advantage. Not to be confused by the conventional 
ideas of pleasure, but to see how enjoyment is distrib- 
uted finely and evenly throughout all effort, rather 



THE FRUIT OF THE MOMENT 257 

than in one nugget — to believe that life, day by day, 
is an adventure — there is a preventive against disap- 
pointment and disillusion. 

The old legend has it that the Fates, in planning 
men's acts, assigned a certain, definite amount of hap- 
piness to each sequence of events, and any actor might 
choose how he should be paid. He might enjoy either 
in anticipation, or in achievement, or in memory ; but 
if he distributed the payments amongst the three, one 
payment would diminish the others, for the three in- 
stalments must inevitably add up to the same sum at 
the end. 

But a more fitting allegory would teach that pleas- 
ure can not be hoarded with miserly craft, to be spent 
or wasted in riotous bliss. If we try that — and how 
often have we not tried ! — we are always disappointed. 
Pleasure, the legitimate reward of effort, is an interest 
that is regularly paid. We must spend it or waste it ; 
we can not save it up against a rainy day. It behooves 
us to collect it, therefore, to the last farthing, day by 
day. 

And so, whether we love, or toil, or war; to be thor- 
ough — that is, to see clearly and enjoy wittingly the 
delight of the moment — is the true recompense of 
endeavor. Not to arrive, but to move in the ri?ht 



258 THE FRUIT OF THE MOMENT 

direction, is happiness. For happiness is a term that 
we do know something about; it is a gift of the gods 
that never fails, while pleasure, the inconsequent, irrel- 
evant, fatuous, unearned increment of life, is a. delu- 
sion of man's brains. 



THE BURDEN OF BEAUTY 

BEAUTY is not its own excuse for being, I am 
quite sure. At least, not all beauty. There is an 
overwhelming, compelling, vibrant sort that needs other 
than its own justification, and depends usually upon 
symbolism. This is the beauty that can not be pas- 
sively enjoyed, but exacts its tribute of active partici- 
pation from every beholder. 

The grander and more elaborate of the Gothic cathe- 
drals are of this sort of beauty. The cathedrals 
of Milano and Cologne, for instance, are dominant, 
esthetic tyrants of the eye. They levy their toll on 
the emotions, as the beadle his on the purse; you can 
not escape looking and wondering, yes, and suffering, 
any more than you can willingly escape the sight of a 
great fire. 

Such marvels exhaust, if they do not affright. 
A monument of this bewildering beauty, and such in- 
finite elaboration, drive one to seek relief in homelier 
sights. One can only look and look, trying to appre- 
ciate and understand and enjoy. But it is too much. 

259 



260 THE BURDEN OF BEAUTY 

To digest such a mass of beauty demands too much. 
The effort to appraise its value intellectually, to make 
the hurried most of a wondrous opportunity is baf- 
fling, and one turns away to hide one's head. 

So we travel over seas and mountains, spending time 
and money to find this monstrous beauty not minister- 
ing to us, but oppressing us, not our servant or actor, 
but our master, the million-eyed, staring observer of 
our own littleness. And so, shrunk in spirit, convict- 
ing ourselves of Philistinism, we slink away to the 
lesser joys of travel reproaching ourselves in whispers. 

Are we necessarily at fault, then? Has beauty a 
right to demand so much of us? Is it not, in its es- 
sence, a giver of rest? We have mistaken wonder and 
elaboration and size for beauty, and fancy that we 
must worship at every shrine. Here, at Milano, is a 
forest of pinnacles, but it has not the dignity of the 
forest. It bears two thousand statues on its walls and 
roofs, but by them we are troubled as by an insistent 
crowd. The wealth of carving, in crotchet and gar- 
goyle, tracery and molding, swells the sum of its value 
so that we can but grasp and stupidly whip up our 
minds to pull and carry a comprehension of this ex- 
quisite load. 

We are dazed and conscious, as if we dined with 



THE BURDEN OF BEAUTY 261 

Royalty. It is a surfeit of sweets, where one can se- 
lect no one item for enjoyment. The thousands of 
unseen details join the grand chorus, the multiplex 
harmonies rise like odors. 

This is the very horror of beauty. Psychology tells 
us that all pleasant sensations, if prolonged or intensi- 
fied, drop, and finally become knowable only as pain. 
So Cologne cathedral can torture me with its exquisite 
perfection, its transcendent refinements. It is as if 
too great beauty made men mad. 

Yet nature never torments us so. Is it because we 
know we can not, and so do not try to, understand, 
taking our pleasure simply as a child does ? No doubt. 
We do not attempt to comprehend the ocean, nor a 
woman's fair face. We accept it as beauty simply, 
never thinking to wonder. Our blessing of beauty so 
comes net and clean, and there is no need to worry 
over laws and values, and whether we are or are not 
extracting every possible marvel from the sight. We 
do not attempt to apply history, art, literature, poetry, 
romance, politics, and what-not, as we find ourselves 
doing with the cathedral, as we cast our differently- 
colored mental fires upon its walls. No, ah, no ! The 
gleam of the moonray on the sea is enough for our 
child-hearts! 



262 THE BURDEN OF BEAUTY 

So we fall into one of the two classes of tourists, 
either the triflers or the students. We either fight this 
demon Beauty, or lightly avoid its flaming breath. Yet 
not willingly do we ally ourselves with these typical 
Baedeker-Americans; we have our pang before we 
skip from town to town dreading our "objects of in- 
terest." For we have lost an illusion, as one usually 
must do when one takes that perilous voyage from the 
ideal to the concrete. How we pored over our photo- 
graphs ! How we invested them with thrills of joy as 
we imagined that wondrous time when the great, good 
thing should come to life before us ! 

And now to be struck chill! Not that the longed- 
for place or building is one whit less than we had fan- 
cied it, but that we ourselves are lacking in the power 
of enjoying it. Here is one of the tragedies of travel. 
We can fare now no longer on the wings of fancy — 
we are shut out from that fine, fair world; we must 
look our emotions in the face and say : "Wit, whither 
wilt ?" 

Something of this, whether more or less, we must 
feel with all the wonders of the world, all wonders 
made by men. At times, rarely and far apart, we en- 
counter a more god-like simplicity, a beauty that is not 
dependent upon mathematical repetition or complex 



THE BURDEN OF BEAUTY 263 

ratios, nor upon incredible difficulty of execution and 
appreciation, but of a charm so perfect, that, like the 
circle, it seems to explain itself, while embodying un- 
solvable mystery. Beauty undraped is hard to find, 
but at times the mantle of wonder man has wrought 
falls from it, or grows transparent. Then art conceals 
art; we are rapt, and reason steals free, to leave us 
alone with a single emotion. 

So near the Greeks came, that architects for all time 
shall seek from them the secret, that intricate and 
subtle law of proportion, that seems like a divine free- 
dom instead. So near the Japanese have come, that 
art seems nature, and we can let our minds alone — 
and feel. Man learns the lesson of simplicity, and 
forgets it. Forgets it as a woman forgets, who, beauti- 
ful and full of grace, burdens our eyes with raiment 
and jewels. The balance of our emotions is delicate 
and sensitive — we can bear a definite amount of beauty, 
not a hair more. 

Indeed, beauty itself can not bear the extra load, for 
in a trice it is transmuted into pathos, wonder, or to 
awfulness. 



THE GENTLEMAN'S CODE 

ACCUSTOMED as we are to regard women as 
ilmore conventional and law-abiding than men, it 
may be thought impertinent and unscientific to assert 
of women that they, rather than men, are the social 
anarchists, and by their very lawlessness evidence the 
stronger character of the two sexes. We are told, for 
instance, that the male represents the radical, and the 
female the conservative, force in the human couple; 
that masculine energy is centrifugal and feminine cen- 
tripetal; that man is forever experimenting, seeking 
the exceptional and the erratic, while woman prefers, 
discreetly, the bird in the hand, adheres to rule, and 
prefers the normal. 

However this may be in the greater activities of life 
and in intellectual pursuits, men in many of their so- 
cial relations and in their emotional experience often 
evidence a curious, a formal, allegiance to codified 
prejudice. In their manifestations of dress, of social 
honor, and even of the love instinct itself, men, far 
more than women, seem to conform to conventional 

264 



THE GENTLEMAN'S CODE 265 

rules of deportment. They fear the authority of the 
public sentiment of their caste; they eschew originality. 
In many things, such as these, they are the slaves of 
custom. 

The prescribed dress for men is fixed to definite 
limits of individuality to which no woman would sub- 
mit. They are at the mercy of their tailors, their 
hosiers, and their bootmakers, whose models must be 
accurate to within a quarter of an inch of the regnant 
mode. Their choice in color is sharply defined, the 
number of buttons on their coats is provided for by 
a mathematical formula; their style and cut are fore- 
ordained, leaving no latitude for esthetic free-will. 
But a woman's fancy may fly free ; she has the choice 
of the centuries — her evening gown may, with trivial 
adaptations, follow the lines of Empire, Restoration, 
Florentine extravagance, or Puritan sobriety. A 
woman of fashion is a general commanding an army 
of sartorial legions. To her councils of war she in- 
vites artists and dressmakers, tailors and milliners, but 
if she is successful the initiative must come from her. 
She must strike with originality and crafty finesse. 
On the subject of her raiment every normal woman is 
not only serious, but, as far as possible, inventive. To 
be dressed in style means only that she has a hundred 



266 THE GENTLEMAN'S CODE 

patterns to choose from, while a man has but four 
or five. 

The genetleman's code of honor is as definite as the 
regulations of his dress. It is, in fact, so dominant that 
its power and influence often raise and keep a man 
to an ethical standard higher than that set by his own 
conscience. There are certain things a gentleman may 
not do ; it is understood and accepted by all who claim 
that status. One does not, for instance, w r rite anony- 
mous letters, one does not use a lady's name in club 
gossip, one does not speak ill of an opponent or rival, 
one is always loyal to a confidence, after a quarrel as 
well as before. But many a man is obedient to these 
canons of etiquette, not through any masculine superi- 
ority of honor, but merely because of this recognized 
code. 

Women, on the contrary, have no such specific, 
crystallized sentiment in this regard. To be a lady, 
indeed, implies a high-minded delicacy on such sub- 
jects, but when a woman breathes neither malice nor 
scandal, when she shows her sense of noblesse oblige, 
when she can quarrel without revealing secrets, it is 
because of the inherent nobility of her own character, 
and not on account of allegiance to any code. Most 
women have all other women as adversaries ; most 



THE GENTLEMAN'S CODE 267 

men have all other men as their allies. Women know 
little of this esprit de corps, this mutual shielding of 
sex by sex, for the reason that they are not, ordinarily, 
so accustomed to law. 

A man, in almost all his relations, is bound by regu- 
lations, and sustained by well-recognized rules of con- 
duct with which he is thoroughly familiar. His busi- 
ness practise teaches him continually the necessity for 
discretion in talk, his club life affiliates him with a 
class to whom he owes specific loyalty and considera- 
tion, his political career constrains him with countless 
motives of policy and expediency. Thus his social 
ideals are communistic, while a woman, though she 
seem to bow to the yoke of society, is, at heart, and 
whenever practicable, an individualist. Emancipated 
as individuals, as a class women do not have the same 
social instinct — that idea of the greatest good of the 
greatest number — as do men. 

But, though this reason may be accountable for most 
of the petty weaknesses, jealousies and inconsistencies 
of the gentler sex, does it not also point out the fact 
that Woman, in all these relations, is the radical force, 
the experimenter, the iconoclast? A woman of honor 
is the more noble if she is living up to her own concep- 
tion of duty than if she is conforming to placate public 



268 THE GENTLEMAN'S CODE 

opinion. And this is seen continually. Women rise 
to higher heights of sacrifice, and, when determined, 
they act with courage rare among men. They fling 
aside comment as chaff, when a man though he do 
nobly, has an eye to his spectators. A generous, mag- 
nanimous woman is more ingenuous and confident in 
well-doing than any man. 

In her emotions, it might almost go without saying, 
women are even more bold. There is her field — she 
is never tired of discovery and exploration. It is, in 
fact, her world. We men do but touch at the shores 
of this vast empire and traffic with the treaty ports. 
Women take their lives in their hands and adventure 
far inland. With her heart for a compass and her 
emotions to propel her, her travels reach to worlds 
unkenned by man. 

The ordinary man in love is a sorry sight compared 
with his mistress. He makes his love conventionally, 
and continually disappoints the woman who wishes to 
see new lights gleam in his eyes. He is in poignant 
fear of discovery, he has a horror of ridicule, his one 
dread is lest he make a fool of himself. But a woman 
is a cheap chit indeed if she spends a thought on such 
nonsense. She is on a wild enterprise — what does it 
matter if the policeman catch a glimpse of a kiss stolen 



THE GENTLEMAN'S CODE 269 

too near a gas lamp? She has fancy that discards 
facts and dwells in the realm of pure idealism. She 
can shame a man's lesser passion by her ardor with- 
out trying ; her abandon is superb. 

So, do not smile if she insists upon attempting to 
enter a woman's club after she has been blackballed, 
if she whine a bit when she loses at cards, if she 
indulge in feline amenities with her fairer rivals. For 
she is herself in a thousand ways men never dare, and 
a fine woman is worth a hundred of the finest men. 

After all, women are most like cats and men like 
dogs. One sex has never yet been civilized, and has 
moods of spontaneous impulse and untamed vigor of 
individuality. The other has come into social enlight- 
enment, and, for individual liberty lost, has gained 
community welfare. As the cat lapses into savagery 
by night, and barbarously explores the dark, so primal 
and titanic is a woman with the love-madness. As the 
dog becomes thoroughbred in the laws of clan and 
caste — obedient, fraternal, loyal — so is a man who 
accepts the Gentleman's Code. 



NONSENSE, LIMITED 

TO-DAY I heard of an otherwise estimable 
woman who has just read a carefully prepared 
paper on "Mother Goose" nonsense rhymes. It seems 
to have been written with the primary adoption of an 
artificial point of view, and a secondary attempt to 
manufacture evidence to fit. Her thesis was the eth- 
ical and educational value of this nursery classic, with 
pedantic essays in determination of its history. Was 
ever an alleged scientific theory so preposterous? 

"Ding dong bell, pussy's in the well," she quoted. 
"Don't we all know families where there is a little 
child that teases animals? 'Who put her in? Little 
Johnnie Green!' Ah, some such child will be moved 
by this portrayal of his cruelty, and hate to be called 
Johnnie Green! 'Who'll pull her out? Big Johnnie 
Stout !' And what child would not be proud to be 
called by that name?" And so on, through the old 
woman of Banbury Cross and "Little Jack Horner" to 
"Hey, diddle, diddle, the cat and the fiddle !" drawing 
her insufferable moral wherever she went. It sounds 

270 



NONSENSE, LIMITED 271 

like the prattle of some character out of Dickens, but it 
is true. To such base uses may even nonsense come ! 

Nonsense is, indeed, in need of a defender when it 
is attacked with the charge of sense. Let us deliver it 
from such friends as these! It is dreadful to think 
we may ever be asked why we enjoy nonsense, and 
have to prepare an answer; but, without taking the 
thing too seriously, we might, perhaps, reply to this 
amiable old fool thus: 

Nonsense is nonsense — that is, it was until it be- 
came a modern cult, founded upon the scientific prin- 
ciples of the esthetic. Any attempt to legitimize it, or 
apologize for it, or seek to harness it to an utilitarian 
purpose by imputing to it sense, even in a small edu- 
cational modicum (as my fatuous old ninny did), is 
beside the mark. You can not prove that tin is valu- 
able because it is almost the same as feathers. To be 
sure, some nonsense has a grain of wit in it, but it is 
acknowledged by authorities that the less sense a verse 
has the more nonsense, and, consequently (as it is un- 
diluted), the better. "The less there is of yours the 
more there is of mine," said Alice, a saying which 
shows in theory and example about how much freight 
craft of this sort will bear. 

But to defend nonsense on general principles would 



- 



272 NONSENSE, LIMITED 

be absurd. Some people, fortunately, have sense, and 
they like nonsense. Some people are nonsensical, and 
they prefer sense. But when it comes to a question 
of preventing little heads from bursting, we must stop 
and argue with such a garrulous old Mother Goose- 
berry, for, will you believe it ? the paper was read be- 
fore a class of kindergarten teachers. This bloodless 
and brainless, not to speak of humorless, lecturer, ac- 
tually prescribed a drop of morality for every spoon- 
ful of nonsense given children. 

Undoubtedly, nonsense is diametrically opposed to 
the Froebel method of education of the young, but, 
then, Froebel was a German. Yet, what if his way 
is good ? It might almost go without saying that any 
antithesis to it would be good also. No extreme point 
of view is valuable unless it takes into account the 
opposite extreme. Indeed, the same mind leaps alter- 
nately in reaction from one to the other. The oppo- 
site immediately leaps up when any definite statement 
of generalities is made. If one is merely the negation 
of the other, each side becomes intensified by the con- 
trast. So almost all impulses fly back and forth like 
a pendulum. In the conversation of the best talkers 
the spark flashes from grave to gay, from red to com- 
plementary green. 



NONSENSE, LIMITED 273 

What has all this to do with nonsense ? This — that 
even were nonsense really as barren a thing as solemn 
asses imagine, it would still be valuable as a rest from 
mental effort; it would be true recreation. But non- 
sense is not merely something from which the sense 
has been removed ; it has an actual spirit and character 
of its own. When we close our eyes to rest them the 
darkness we see is not mere emptiness, it is a space 
that is filled with floating fancies, quaint forms, 
shifting, meaningless vagaries, unreasonable anarch- 
istic visions. Nonsense — true nonsense — is like this. 
It has motion without direction, mass without weight, 
activity without energy. Who would not delight in 
dealing with such dream-stuff? 

In the contrast between these two methods of play, 
the nonsense method, as opposed to Froebers "devel- 
opment," we find again the distinction that is made 
between fancy and the imagination. Fancy creates, 
working along anarchistic lines, careless, free of the 
restraint of the rules of life; imagination constructs, 
weaving its web of human experience together into an 
organized pattern. No one doubts but that imagina- 
tion is the higher form of intellectual activity, but no 
one can deny that fancy, too, has its place as a rejuve- 
nating influence and a divine sport. 



274 NONSENSE, LIMITED 

It is trite enough to say that what is ordinarily 
counted as useless is necessary. All loam and no sand 
will not make plants grow. But though it is agreed 
that all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, the 
kindergartenized Jack seldom gets a chance to play 
with his mind, however much he may have to play 
with his hands. "Development through play" describes 
well enough all that a German could comprehend, but 
"development through silliness" is often needed with 
these hyper-educated infants. 

And, yet, nonsense is not silly, either! The vaude- 
ville pedagogue who diagnosed Mother Goose was 
silly, if you like. Nonsense has a thrill. What it 
means, and why it affects us pleasantly, I doubt if any 
philosopher can adequately explain. Nor do we know 
just what we gain when we receive a shock of elec- 
tricity. But the thrill is there just the same, and it 
seems to be beneficial. What we do know (and what 
philosophers say we do not know) is that suggestions 
do come from within as well as from without. Non- 
sense is, at best, nothing more or less than an enliven- 
ing, indescribable, perfectly useless, perfectly delight- 
ful suggestion. A little of this sauce might well be 
permitted to children, without putting in bitters. 

The kindergarten method seems to enforce always a 



NONSENSE, LIMITED 275 

purely subjective relation. The child is taught to see 
and touch — to be sensitive to a personal aspect of 
things. Romances permit him to lose himself for mo- 
ments, to get outside this habit of touching, investigat- 
ing, correlating himself with things, and steep himself 
in forgetfulness, while he enjoys blindly, objectively. 
And romance is but mild nonsense — any pedagogue 
will tell you that. Nonsense has no personal applica- 
tion or lesson ; it has its own space, its own time. 

Most of all, nonsense, in permitting us to enjoy ob- 
jectively, educates children in the larger fields of hu- 
mor. Any one who can get outside of himself and 
view things freely, unhampered by the personal limi- 
tation, can, perhaps, view himself and his own acts 
from the outside. This is the essence of humor — to 
be able to laugh at one's self as well as at others. 

We need not fear, then, to allow the child to play 
with the prism. It seems only an empty, transparent 
thing, a useless thing; you can look right through it! 
And when the child allows the sunbeam to fall upon it, 
lo, the light is shattered into silly colors, absolutely un- 
like the warm ray of sunshine. But, after all, he may 
learn something from this pretty, pleasing, abnormal, 
nonsensical mass of incomprehensible hues ! 



FEMININE MODERNITY 

THE question as to whether there is any essen- 
tial difference, intellectually, between men and 
women remains always a fascinating subject for dis- 
cussion, and is as yet not likely to be settled. The ar- 
guments on both sides, biological and sociological, are 
well known. One holds that women are functionally 
unable ever to be men's equals, although they may have 
an equivalent intelligence. They are intended by Na- 
ture to represent the conservative force of the human 
couple, and any great things in the way of esthetic 
creation must not be expected of them. The other 
side contends that the conditions which have sur- 
rounded women for so many generations have ham- 
pered their development, and that, as soon as the in- 
creasing opportunities for education and experience 
which we see in modern life shall have operated for 
a long enough period, woman's creative instinct shall 
be proved to be as broad and as subtle as man's. 

Now, these two theories illustrate fairly well the 
a priori and the a posteriori method of philosophical 
reasoning. However we may speculate upon the ques- 

276 



FEMININE MODERNITY 277 

tion, we should recognize the fact that the evidence is 
not all in, and this consideration alone lends weight to 
the dogma of the mental equality of the sexes. The 
earth, we are told, has been in a condition to sustain 
human life for only a few hundred thousand years, 
while it will probably continue to be adapted to man's 
existence for several millions of years more. The 
ratio is such that, to attempt to settle the question of 
woman's status at present, while she is only just grow- 
ing out of her position as man's toy and chattel, seems 
absurd. 

Still, the problem is alluring, and the more so nowa- 
days, perhaps, on account of a curious phase of class 
consciousness (as the Socialists say) that some modern 
women have begun to show. The woman of to-day 
is apt to pride herself upon her femininity, to play 
with it, making of it a toy, which she shows off indul- 
gently and whimsically to her friends, especially if 
they be men. Thus, for the first time, woman is illu- 
minated by woman. She wears her sex, one might 
say, as if it were a garment a little out of date, point- 
ing out, humorously, the comic anachronisms of its 
cut. Any one who has witnessed such an exposition 
will have noticed it as typical of women who are intel- 
lectually emancipate. 



278 FEMININE MODERNITY 

For instance, a woman may confess her vanity as an 
intrinsic but ridiculous trait that is most amusing. She 
looks at herself mentally as she looks at her physical 
self in the glass, and succeeds in receiving a purely 
objective sensation. If she shares it with you the rev- 
elation is most affording. Men have long since no- 
ticed how fond women are of repetition, of specific 
announcements and declarations in all matters that per- 
tain to love ; but to have a woman tell one that she 
wilfully misquotes in order to be corrected, that she 
consciously accuses, that her charge may be denied, 
that she simulates some moods in order to be wooed 
from them, brings one well within the portals of femi- 
nine psychology — a door no man may hope to pass un- 
less it is unlocked for him. 

Men have always known that women resisted, will- 
ing to be won, but it is only recently that women, hav- 
ing progressed to a man's conception of humor, have 
been willing to share the comedy of the situation with 
them. The ultra-modern woman plays the game of 
love with her cards laid on the table, and wins as 
handily as in the old days, when she was forced to 
use trickery and deception with the opposite sex. She 
makes no secret of her age, while confessing her dread 






FEMININE MODERNITY 279 

of growing old. She speaks of her love of dress and 
flattery as she speaks of her children, without embar- 
rassment or excuse. In short, it would seem that the 
modern woman, a bit fearful of the day when she 
much exchange her privileges for rights, hoards the 
few remnants of distinct femininity, and rejoices the 
more in their possession the rarer they become. Even 
while acknowledging the weaknesses and inconsisten- 
cies which have gained her privileges, however, she 
attempts both to use them and despise them. She 
seems delighted to find that, despite her emancipation, 
the characteristics of the cave-woman and the medie- 
val chattel of mere ornament still survive to baffle the 
logic of the male. 

So, in such cases, it is as if each were two differ- 
ent women ; one primitive, hypersexed, the natural, in- 
stinctive antagonist of the male, mysterious, inscru- 
table; the other sapient and discriminating, logical (or 
at least philosophic), her emotions, though potent, con- 
scious to her, an actor rather than a puppet of temper- 
ament. They are like twins brought up in different 
countries and speaking different languages. One, the 
more highly developed, explains and translates the 
other's more primitive thoughts. She is the interlocu- 



280 FEMININE MODERNITY 

tor, and through her men know all they may of women. 
Nearer than this it is impossible for a man to pene- 
trate. 

Strange, this barrier and mystery of sex ! Men long 
to scale it, yet would not have it down, and it is 
strangest and most elusive in these modern women 
through whose minds we catch glimpses of the primal 
creature beneath, like dim figures behind translucent 
glass. So tantalizing is the display of baffling vagary 
and elusive motives in the psychology of a clever 
woman that the male spectator speculates in vain. Do 
physically functional differences of sex predicate dif- 
fering mental functions ? Or have we been oversexed, 
creating for ourselves artificial differences which will 
not persist in the era of scientific thought? Time 
alone can answer the question, and there is time enough 
in which to collect evidence. 

But at least our epoch has a fascination of its own, 
for now surely woman is in a transitional state, where 
the primitive instincts of sex merge into analytical 
states of mind, with the result that the woman of to- 
day has all the old charms and a multitude of newer 
graces. 



THE GOLDEN MEAN 

THE recrudescence of mysticism which has been 
so much in evidence for the last twenty years, 
and is, no doubt, the natural reaction from the purely 
scientific trend of thought of the nineteenth century, 
has attracted three different classes of believers. These 
might be roughly denned as the dogmatic, the drones, 
and the excitable. Pure idealism, which term may be 
stretched to include all these new doctrines, these 
pseudo-scientific Oriental creeds, has seldom derived 
its converts from those persons who hold the agnostic 
view, who seek the "golden mean." 

To call any of these exotic theories new is as false 
as to classify them as mere superstitions. Palmistry, 
astrology, and that form of mental exorcism which is 
denominated "New Thought" seem, to any student of 
history, to be only revivals of the mistaken but sin- 
cere beliefs which obtained in the Middle Ages, when 
alchemy, astrology and necromancy were in popular 
credence. There seems to be this difference, however, 
that the medieval investigators and practitioners of 

281 



282 THE GOLDEN MEAN 

these arts were, according to their lights, actuated by 
a truly scientific spirit. They formulated and manipu- 
lated all the knowledge that was extant. The fact 
that alchemy paved the way to the knowledge of chem- 
istry, and astrology to astronomy, is sufficient proof 
of this. 

Because we have outgrown these hypotheses, and 
have grouped our experiences with the phenomena of 
nature according to new definitions (which, for want 
of a better term, we call laws), the modern scientific 
spirit considers the revival of medieval formula to be 
a reactionary movement. The higher forms of ideal- 
ism embodied in Christian and mental science, in a 
similar way, though less gross in their objects, are, to 
the scientific collector of evidence, but relics of older 
philosophies, outworn, or at least discredited, by our 
increased knowledge of nature. New Thought can be 
resolved into the formula of psychology or common 
sense. The fundamental rule of modern scientific re- 
search is that no new law should be held accountable 
for phenomena until the laws known and formulated 
have been proven inefficient for explanation. Modern 
science takes for its standpoint the dogma that every- 
thing within our experience, being testified to only by 
the human senses, is explainable by a logical extension 



THE GOLDEN MEAN 283 

of what we already know of science. This is the view 
of the materialist philosopher. 

The idealist, on the other hand, denies the infalli- 
bility of science ; he not only questions the material- 
istic interpretations of nature as so far inadequate, but 
he refuses to admit the jurisdiction of the scientific 
method. He adduces evidence to prove the limitation, 
if not the non-existence of so-called natural causes. 

The first class to which such evidence naturally ap- 
peals is, by an apparent paradox, the materialist him- 
self. The materialist is a dogmatist, and almost all 
dogma is the formulation of an extreme view. To 
assert that there is nothing but matter is one extreme, 
and that there is nothing but spirit, or mind, is the 
other extreme ; and there is a natural tendency of the 
mind to fly to one extreme from the other. 

"All's lend and borrow, 
Joy demands sorrow; 
Good, see, wants evil 
Angel weds devil." 

So Roman Catholics become atheists, and atheists 
Roman Catholics ; so scientists embrace spiritualism. 
The proselyte becomes the greatest enthusiast, the re- 
formed burglar or drunkard is notorious for his relig- 
ious extravagance. Now, in the reports by the most 



284 THE GOLDEN MEAN 

credulous followers of any new cult, stress is often 
laid upon the seemingly inconsistent character of the 
new convert. It is always the "hard-headed business 
man" who is most susceptible to the charlatanry of the 
so-called mind-reader. It is the professed and stub- 
born materialist who is held up as the most remark- 
able brand from the burning, rescued by Christian 
Science. But such extremists are most amenable to 
reactionary or radical influence, after all. 

The other two classes need little attention. One com- 
prises the intellectually apathetic, the mental drones 
who are willing to let others do their thinking. Un- 
able or unwilling to thrash out ethical or philosophical 
questions for themselves, they must rely upon author- 
ity and a well-defined code. Any simplification of the 
complexity of experience, any regulation of life to arbi- 
trary rules, finds many converts. And such blind dev- 
otees are usually helped by coming under the yoke 
of intellectual submission. 

While, however, this class is subject to mental iner- 
tia, another category comprises those who are intel- 
lectually in a state of unstable equilibrium. Every new 
creed, so it be either new or strange, attracts to itself 
a fringe of cranks and hysterical enthusiasts, who are 
willing to swallow any faith without either mastica- 



THE GOLDEN MEAN 285 

tion or digestion. They would have magic — short cuts 
to success, without endeavor — or they would get rich 
quickly without working. Not only are new sects liable 
to danger of misinterpretation from such a thought- 
less following, but every reform is, in a way, liable to 
ridicule and harm from the misguided zeal of excitable 
neophytes. They can not permanently injure a cause, 
but they may seriously hamper its proper and equable 
development. It is here that the person of the golden 
mean exercises his highest function, and judges dis- 
passionately not the zealot, but the principle. It is a 
finely-poised mind that can recognize the divine law, 
"thou shalt not judge the doctrine by the priest." 

It is the person of the golden mean, then, who is 
the hardest to convert. It is the poet, who looks above 
and below things, who sees on both sides of the shield, 
who weighs all the evidence. And there are many such, 
who, being willing to admit that modern science is not 
perfectly adequate to explain the facts of life; who, 
recognizing that there may be more things on Heaven 
and earth than are dreamed of in modern philosophy, 
yet realize, too, that, in any concrete example of the 
alleged exercise of a supernatural law, the evidence is 
likely to be faulty or inaccurate. They are willing to 
believe that it may be possible for the spirits of the 



286 THE GOLDEN MEAN 

dead to return, but, when confronted by a concrete 
case, they admit as well the possibility that the revenant 
was an hallucination, or an optical illusion. They 
may think that the mind exercises extraordinary pow- 
ers over the bodily functions, but they can not forget, 
too, that any especial cure may have been effected by 
means of some forgotten or unknown physical cause. 
They may consider it probable that the lines on the 
palm of the hand, or the disposition of the moles upon 
the body, or the capillary markings upon the fingers, 
or the physiognomy, or the voice, or the gait of an 
individual — all may be correlated with that individ- 
ual's character, and yet it is logical for them to deny 
that as yet any one has attained to the knowledge of 
these things necessary before they can be correctly in- 
terpreted. This is the person who is least apt to accept 
any extreme, idealistic or materialistic, and, until such 
persons have become convinced, no new cause can 
make much true progress; it is always in danger of 
burning itself out, or of being superseded by a later 
revelation. 

But the person of the golden mean, too, may arrive 
at a mental "dead point," and be unable to progress, 
acted upon, as he is, by conflicting forces. He must 
make intellectual detours of investigation, keeping a 



THE GOLDEN MEAN 287 

sane spirit ready to correct any eccentricity. He does 
not make the world move much faster, but, like the 
ratchet on the wheel, he conserves what has been 
gained by the human intellect. There comes a time 
when one new point is proved to his conviction. The 
wheel of knowledge then moves up another notch, and 
the ratchet falls into the new place, never to recede. 



MAXIMS AND SAWS 

A SAW cuts but in one direction. So does the 
maxim or adage. It is a half-truth that, to be- 
come truly pregnant, needs to be wedded to its com- 
plementary statement. And, like a happy married pair, 
each is so wise, so true, so beautiful, that we can 
scarcely tell which is the better half. 

Maxims are like lawyers who must needs see but 
one side of a case. They disregard half the evidence, 
and formulate their prosecution or defense in a single 
crisp sentence. "She who hesitates is lost," says one. 
"Look before you leap," says the other. I need but to 
give a list of contradictory saws to prove my point. 
Let me present them, paired, to show how difficult it 
is to derive wisdom from knowledge : 

"A man is known by the company he keeps." 
"Appearances are deceitful." 

"Honesty is the best policy." 

"The truth is not to be spoken at all times." 

"Too many cooks spoil the broth." 
"In a multitude of counselors there is wisdom." Or, 
"Two heads are better than one." 

288 



ii 



a 



MAXIMS AND SAWS 289 

Out of sight, out of mind." 

Absence makes the heart grow fonder." 



"Take care of the pence, and the pounds will take 
care of themselves." 

"Penny wise and pound foolish." 

"A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." 
"Nothing venture, nothing have." 

"A rolling stone gathers no moss." 
"A setting hen never grows fat." 

"Strike while the iron is hot." 
"A patient waiter is no loser." 

"The early bird catches the worm." 
"There are as good fish in the sea as ever were 
caught." 

"It never rains but it pours." 
Every cloud has a silver lining." 



a 



".When poverty comes in at the door, love flies out 
at the keyhole." 

"Money is the root of all evil." 

"One swallow does not make a summer." 
"Straws show which way the wind blows." 



290 MAXIMS AND SAWS 



(( V 



Tis a long lane that has no turning." Or, "Tis 
never too late to mend." 

"As the twig is bent, the tree's inclined." 

"Poverty makes strange bedfellows." 
"Birds of a feather flock together." 

"The gods give nuts to those that have no teeth." 
"God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb." 

"Familiarity breeds contempt." 

"Every crow thinks her chick the blackest." 

So it is that truth is too elusive, too elastic to be com- 
pressed into a single sentence. To sail directly to wind- 
ward we must beat back and forth from one approxi- 
mation to another. 

The conception of truth as definite and therefore 
definable is misleading. Truth is an abstraction, a 
hypothesis, as impossible to conceive as is the mathe- 
matical hypothesis of infinity. The nearest approach 
we can make to infinity is by means of series, increas- 
ing regularly. But infinity, according to geometry, is 
itself divisible into different orders of greatness. The 
infinite area inside the parabola is less than the infinite 
area outside the same curve. Nevertheless, the for- 
mula of the parabola is a means of describing its 
shape, though its direct statement is false. 



MAXIMS AND SAWS 291 

Yet maxims have their place, for they are little 
sermons. We must have our blocks from which to 
build our little houses, we must have our precepts from 
which to construct philosophies. Some of the rough 
facts of life must be compressed into adages in or- 
der to conserve for yo.uth the experience of mankind. 
Children must have empirical rules, but they must 
learn the exceptions themselves, and it is not until 
they have done so that they find the futility of attempt- 
ing to formulate life and conduct into any definite 
code. We teach them the primary colors, but they 
must find their own purple in the landscape, and think 
of it, too, as purple, rather than as a combination of 
blue and red. 

The essay is another amplification of the adage, and 
it can scarcely do more than suggest. When it at- 
tempts to assert, the opposite statement springs up and 
challenges our attention, as red, too long stared at, 
induces the sensation of green. The function of the 
essay is rather to stimulate thought, to induce a new 
point of view; and, whether it converts us to this 
fresh way of looking at things, or confirms us in our 
old opinion, is little matter, if so be it has made us 
think. It should be connotative rather than denotative 
to inspire our imaginations. 



292 MAXIMS AND SAWS 

Maxims pave the way for thought, and on them we 
go faster and farther, though we go only on the beaten 
track. Without bigots, eccentrics, cranks and here- 
tics the world would not progress, for they, possessed 
of but one side of a truth, flourish their saws as 
weapons and hew a way for us* Through affirmation 
and denial we make a zigzag course toward reform. 

Push on one pedal of your bicycle and the other 
comes up to your foot ready for its impulse. So, alter- 
nating, we go forward, with never a stroke cleanly 
driven in the true direction we wish to take. Maxim 
and counter-maxim, theory and converse, proposition 
and corollary, rule and exception, orthodoxy and het- 
erodoxy, appeal in turn, and each opposite, paired, 
does not make zero, like positive and negative terms, 
but a mechanical couple insuring rotation. Both are 
true, both are false. 

But we do progress. We are like points on the rim 
of a wheel, thinking that while we are rising and fall- 
ing to maxim and contradictory adage, we are merely 
revolving in futile rotation. Instead, we are all car- 
ried forward in a secret curve of beauty, the beautiful 
arch of the cycloid. 



X IS GREATER THAN Y 

IN the algebra of the emotions we are constantly 
given problems containing two unknown quanti- 
ties of pleasure. Upon the solution of such puzzles 
our happiness depends, for, confronted by two differ- 
ent courses of action, we have to decide which alterna- 
tive to accept. One, we may say, holds X units of 
pleasure ; the other, Y units. The equation is likely to 
be an affected quadratic, hard to solve. The nearest 
we can come to it, usually, is a conviction of the fact 
that X is greater than Y. 

Were there any such thing as a true unit of pleas- 
ure our problem would be easier. A unit, however, 
must be a constant, an invariable, in order that its 
multiples may be employed to describe varying de- 
grees of enjoyment. Should a philosopher undertake 
to discover one, he might perhaps reason thus : 

Let us first experiment with what might be called 
the juvenile unit, and assume it to be, for instance, the 
amount of pleasure derived from eating one pound of 
sweets. A child, therefore, might possibly be logical 
and accurate enough to state that, in the act of going 

293 



294 X IS GREATER THAN Y 

fishing, there are four units of pleasure, or an amount 
equal to that in eating four pounds of sweets. But 
after one has eaten one pound of sweets, the second 
pound is not so pleasurable, and the third still less so. 
Our unit evidently decreases in value as it is multi- 
plied. It is, therefore, not a constant, and will not do 
for mathematical precision. 

Let us now try the lover's unit — one kiss from the 
lips of a sweetheart. But here we find the value of 
our unit increases with multiplication, for the more a 
lover (if he be a true lover) kisses his sweetheart, the 
more he wishes to, and the last kiss is always the best. 
This unit, therefore, is not a constant quantity. 

Next let us try the artistic unit— the pleasure in see- 
ing a certain picture or in hearing a certain song. 
But some pictures and some songs are more enjoyable 
the oftener they are enjoyed, while some grow less 
enjoyable the oftener they are enjoyed. This unit, 
therefore, is also variable, and can not be substituted 
in any equation of joy. 

Our philosopher would at last come to the conclusion 
that there could be no such unit adopted, unless, in- 
deed, it be the sensation of death, which is probably 
the same for all, and varies little from time and place. 
But even if death, as a unit of pleasure, is not a minus 



X IS GREATER THAN Y 295 

quantity, it is probably an infinite quantity, and hence 
can not, according to mathematical principles, be used 
at all as a standard. 

Let us call X and Y, then, different quantities of 
pleasure — definite (though unknown) multiples of a 
variable unit. The unit varies according to the cir- 
cumstances of the particular case, as fatigue and appe- 
tite vary, or as age and taste. We can only estimate 
the values of X and Y, then, from our knowledge of 
our own characters. To illustrate: 

Suppose you are climbing a mountain, and, while 
still a little way from the top, find that you have not 
time to reach the summit and return for dinner; or 
suppose merely that you are too fatigued to go farther 
with pleasure. The satisfaction in attaining your goal 
might give you Y units of pleasure. The comfort in a 
return to dinner and bed would give you X units. 
Shall you go or return? A fatuous pride of victory, 
the conventional feeling that a thing once begun must 
be ended, forces you on, while common sense urges 
you back. You decide that, as the climb was under- 
taken solely for pleasure, you will get most pleasure 
by abandoning your project. In other words, though 
you fail to solve the problem accurately, you become 
convinced that X is greater than Y. 



296 X IS GREATER THAN Y 

This is a type of many problems — physical, emo- 
tional, mental, ethical — which we have to consider in 
our conduct. Each depends on a calm consideration 
of the circumstances ; in a word, it is only a question 
of common sense. 

But is not common sense a fit subject for analysis? 
Common sense is a mysterious kind of logic, but it 
has its principles. When one stops to examine it, it 
shows itself to be as complex as the microscopic or- 
ganism which seems to the naked eye so small and 
simple. Of all its elements none is so often neglected 
as the recognition of the fact that X is greater than Y. 

I buy an automobile, but, because I have a fascinat- 
ing neighbor, my machine proves to be a bore. I dis- 
like to spend the time necessary to make it ready, or 
to attend to its repairs. I prefer to call on my neigh- 
bor than to ride out alone. I had expected to use it 
a great deal ; it cost much money. Shall I permit my 
financial conscience to harry me into using it, in order 
to get the value of my investment? Must I take the 
Y units of pleasure I expected of it? No; for my 
fascinating neighbor can give me X units in a single 
call ! And X is greater than Y. 

The problem of the artist is more abstruse. He 
can never point to the exact moment or amount of 



X IS GREATER THAN Y 297 

pleasure he receives. He could not say whether it 
lies most in the inspiration of conception, the feverish 
travail of production, or the rapture of completion. 
He knows only that in some strange way his work 
seems play and his pain becomes pleasure. Yet idle- 
ness and comfort and diversion all seem pleasant, too 
— as pleasant as Y. But the stern labor of achieve- 
ment is joyful, as joyful as X. Though he knows 
not the reason, he is wise enough to know that X is 
greater than Y. 

As with the physical delights of all athletic sports, 
so it is with the mental struggles of the arts and sci- 
ences. And so, too, on a higher plane, w r ith moral 
questions of renunciation and sacrifice. The old con- 
flict between love and duty, between riches and honor, 
between the individual and society, are all questions 
of the relative values of X and Y, X representing 
the nobler joys of unselfishness, the altruistic reward, 
while Y stands for personal gratification or happiness. 
It is only because one does not properly appreciate 
these values that one chooses the lesser ; but few stop 
long enough over the problem to decide that X is 
greater than Y. 

The conventional society woman, wearying herself 
with unnecessary formal duties and occupations, and 



298 X IS GREATER THAN Y 

all the routine of boredom, is a type of the many who 
do not see that X is greater than Y. Such have made 
a fetish of pleasure, and the demon rules them with 
a preposterous code. Mentally blind, they follow the 
letter of his law, accepting as pleasant things irksome 
and annoying. Plays, poems, pictures, music, which 
make no esthetic appeal to them, they take like coun- 
terfeit money, preferring a bad half-crown to a good 
sixpence. It takes courage for even an educated per- 
son to be independent and affirm with boldness, "X is 
greater than Y." 

It is a test of maturity, as well as of common sense, 
to solve such equations rationally, and to decide calmly, 
upon the Relative Importance of Things, without co- 
ercion by the empirical standards of enjoyment. We 
can not all agree, of course, but we may at least de- 
cide for ourselves. And we need not think, foolishly, 
that because X was greater than Y in another instance, 
or a year ago, it can not be true now that Y is greater 
than X ! 



WOMEN'S FASHIONS 

NOTHING is supposedly so foreign to men's in- 
terest as the fashions in women's clothes. Here 
he is considered the barbarian, an outsider, wholly in- 
competent and devoid of any appreciative power. As 
to knowledge, his statements, when he does pretend 
to any intimate information on the mode, is laughed 
to scorn. He is supposed to know only the one term, 
"cut bias," and his malaprop remarks are classic. 

But, at the risk of appearing effeminate, I must 
confess that the subject appeals to my curiosity. I 
am in the same anomalous position as a woman who 
affects an interest and intelligence in machinery. 
Women's fashions, the most whimsical, fantastic, ab- 
surd and illogical of subjects as it is, has kept me 
awake nights. I have no personal interest in the busi- 
ness, however ; my position is that of the unprejudiced 
observer. I even take women's fashions without won- 
der, knowing how vain is any attempt to treat the mat- 
ter philosophically. 

With all the fun women make of us, they scarcely 

299 



300 WOMEN'S FASHIONS 

realize how dense is the ordinary man's ignorance of 
a subject that is, to a whole sex, a matter of vital 
importance. The Mode is, for most men, a sealed 
book — and one, too, that he has no desire to open. 
The very technique of it baffles him, and of the pri- 
mary principles upon which a woman's gown is con- 
structed he has no idea. A woman's costume to him 
consists of a skirt, and a waist, with sleeves — perhaps 
a belt. There his terminology ceases. Of the sub- 
divisions of yokes, panels, gores, ruffles, tabs, stoles, 
and revers he knows naught. Nor can he name 
the principal families of garments, his education stop- 
ping at the differentiation between a cloak, cape and 
jacket. What of boleros, Louis Quinze and three- 
quarter coats, coffee coats, Eton jackets, and a hun- 
dred other kinds of "wraps"? — nothing. 

That fashions change he knows, but how and when 
he is not aware, unless some female friend insists upon 
opening his eyes. He has seen big sleeves go out 
and smaller ones come in, but can he tell last year's 
cut from this? Can he tell a bishop's sleeve from a 
leg-of-mutton? Can he tell, without looking, where it 
should be baggy and where tight, and how the cuff 
goes, and whether rows of tucks are proper, and all 
about the lining? No, of course not. Nor how many 



WOMEN'S FASHIONS 301 

gores are in the mondaine's skirt, nor whether a 
crushed girdle should be worn or a leather belt. 

Nor, to be candid, can I. My chief claim to wisdom 
is this — that I realize that here is a science the in- 
tricacies of which few men suspect exist. Men think 
of women as puttering and fussing over their clothes, 
no doubt inventing them, out of hand; but all this 
magic lore, the intelligent digestion of which only pro- 
fessional dressmakers are capable, is a world beyond 
man's ken. 

But they are not merely playing a superior game 
of dolls, these women ; I am sure of that, now. I 
have dipped into fashion literature, and come out 
frozen with terror. At first I thought I might glance 
over some fashion journal, and get, in ten minutes 
or so, an intelligent comprehension of the winter styles, 
so that when I walked abroad I might easily pick out 
the smart from the merely well dressed, and the slip- 
shod from the behind-the-times. Only women, who 
have made a life-long study of such things, can imag- 
ine what a surprise I received. 

In the first place, I could, by no power of common 
sense, identify in the pictures the particular gown I 
had just read described. I had to go by the number 
of the costume, and then, with one finger on the words 



302 WOMEN'S FASHIONS 

and one on the fashion plate, make out, part by part, 
each item of the garment. Finally, for permanent edi- 
fication, I wrote across the figure the scientific names 
of each part, as "waved insertion" and "inverted box 
plait," and so on, having considerable trouble in de- 
ciding just where the "postilion" w r as. These prelim- 
inaries alone took me several hours. 

But then, when, with my lesson learned, as I 
thought, I went on the street, how lamentably meager 
seemed my information ! Where was the "stole with 
tabs" ? Where was the Greenland seal jacket ? Where, 
oh, where was that distinctive "1830 effect" at which 
I had rejoiced? I had learned that the mode com- 
pelled "a circular shaping with darts, affording a 
smooth adjustment over the hips." Were all the 
women I met frumps, or was I an idiot, without un- 
derstanding of the English language, or as one who, 
having eyes, sees not? 

Hats I frankly gave up immediately. How to tell 
one that is stylish from one that is passe, except as to 
color, for colors do, even to men, seem to have their 
seasons, I could not understand. A man's theory is 
that a woman ought to wear only what is becoming, 
but I now realize how crude arc such vague general 
principles. But still, even in the fashion magazines 



WOMEN'S FASHIONS 303 

of the month current, hats evidence a wide range of 
choice that seems to me to be inclusive of everything 
a milliner could devise. And, a propos, is "picture 
hat" a general or specific term? I could not deter- 
mine from my authority, who seemed to take a knowl- 
edge of such elementary matters for granted. Is there 
no primer for men who would acquire the rudiments 
of this great science? 

But I could, at least, intelligently admire the fash- 
ion writer's diction and rhetoric. Fashion literature 
has developed, even in my time of observation, to al- 
most the point of being an art by itself. I culled many 
quaint and picturesque phrases, some so fascinatingly 
alluring as almost to make one's mouth water for a 
sight of the creation. "Pervaded with tiny dots" 
charmed me. "A pink violet shade shot with gray" 
was visualistic. But here is my gem — "tuck shirrings 
in the sleeves accentuate the drooping shoulder ap- 
pearance, and the voluminous puffs sag modishly over 
two-seam linings having simulated cuffs of lace." The 
description would be voluptuous were it not so spir- 
ited! What man could read this fancy calmly? — "a 
development of Burgundy red French flannel trimmed 
with gold Soutache braid over silk, and brass bullet 
buttons arranged in groups." 



304 WOMEN'S FASHIONS 

Equally bewildering to a man are the thousands of 
fabrics from which a woman has to choose. One 
gasps at the diversity, which no dictionary will ex- 
plain. What, in Heaven's name, is zibeline, or zenana, 
Louisine, vicuna, or voile? Lady's cloth seems easily 
understood, though experience makes me wary of de- 
fining its texture; but Corean crepe, peatt de cygne, 
Paraquay lace, and Pekin tussore silk, even taffeta 
and kersey, are mere words to me. But they sound 
beautiful, and I am sure they are. As for "pink crepe 
Albatross, with Maltese lace," it is certainly convinc- 
ing, even as a phrase, without being made up. 

In searching for the prevailing color, too, I wan- 
dered w r ide afield, through blossoming meadows. Al- 
most every flower was represented before I had read 
the fashions through. "A wonderful range of violet, 
fuchsia and dahlia shades" are found in velvets, and 
in blue, a "shade of blue that suggested the hyacinth." 
To these, heliotrope, begonia, and geranium, and jon- 
quil, on through Flora's realm. Here was a "rich 
plum color being particularly in evidence," and there 
"a delicate peach hue" was seen, and apricot and apple 
and banana yellow, too. But what hue is biscuit? 
Gun-metal and ciel-blue, I know, but "opal and moon- 
light colorings" puzzle me, 



WOMEN'S FASHIONS 305 

Well, after all, we men have much to learn. But 
somehow, so long as the right girl has what seems to 
be the right gown, we do not much care. I have picked 
my own favorite from this mass of costumes, though, 
and when she comes down to the drawing-room I am 
fondly hoping that she will wear a "one-color harmony, 
with beautiful long, lobe-shaped spangles on cream 
net." I shall never forgive her if she dares try a "one- 
seam sleeve in flowing style, with a circular cuff !" It 
sounds coarse. 



H 



PERSONALITY 

OW d'you do, Mr. Smith ! You don't remem- 
ber me, do you?" Who has not been struck 
dumb by such a question and writhed at the public 
humiliation? Who has not groped in vain for some 
tactful way by which to extricate himself from the 
situation? Of all the terrors of the drawing-room 
the person who inflicts this question upon you without 
giving you a clue- to his name is the pest paramount. 
Tactlessness, conceit and rudeness can go no further. 
You can, perhaps, escape the bore and the cad, but 
this affable torturer is always with us. He comes 
when least expected; no provision can enable you to 
escape in time. Unless you are a King, with a Cham- 
berlain at your elbow to prompt you, you must face 
the music and pass off the inquisition as lightly as 
possible. 

"How d'you do, Mr. Smith! You don't remember 
me, do you?" 

What answer can one make ? 

I know of but three sorts of reply — the counter- 
check quarrelsome, the lie circumstantial and the re- 

306 



PERSONALITY 307 

tort courteous. The choice of these Touchstonian re- 
plies depends upon the degree of anger into which 
you have been lashed. If you are slow at recalling 
faces or names, and if you have borne the sting of 
such inept remarks recently, you may say, using the 
countercheck quarrelsome : 

"No, why should I ?" 

Is this not justifiable ? Why, indeed, should we care 
to know a person who can be willing so to embarrass 
you? I, for one, do not. What conceit for him to 
think that I needs must recall his face and his bland 
affability! For, as a rule, the person who makes use 
of this remark is a mediocrity; no one with brains 
would expect that, among a thousand persons, I would 
remember him, and no one with an ounce of breeding 
would put me to the test. 

The preface of his name alters the whole case, for 
if he says: "I am Mr. Jones; I suppose you do not 
remember me?" with what ardor he would be wel- 
comed and clasped by the hand! With what haste 
one would assure him that he had been often in one's 
mind! That single instant of preparation is enough 
to give us a chance to recover. On the second we 
have placed him in our picture gallery. But it is a 
rogue's gallery after all, for what he really has said is : 



308 PERSONALITY 

"How d'you do, Mr. Smith! You don't remember 
me, do you?" 

But perhaps you are soft-hearted ; you do not wish 
to return rudeness for rudeness. You prefer to use 
your wit to break your fall ; you think you may gain 
time by a jest. You may, at least, hope to disconcert 
your inquisitor. And so, maybe, if you bear some 
faraway resemblance to a famous actor, author, tinker, 
tailor or thief, you reply, facetiously: 

"I beg your pardon, but haven't you made a mis- 
take ? I am not Mr. Smith — I am Francis Wilson." 

This is the lie circumstantial. I recommend it to 
all sufferers. It will baffle for a moment the most 
determined attack of misguided friendship. You put 
the burden of proof upon your opponent, and it will 
go hard if you do not draw a smile from him, under 
cover of which you can reform, reinforce your pres- 
ence of mind, and sustain a second attack. Said smil- 
ingly, it disarms your adversary, or placates him, at 
least, for your lack of recognition: spoken seriously, 
it may actually force him to retreat, and you can kill 
him with a taunt at your leisure. 

The lie circumstantial may be varied in several ways, 
according to how much you care to regard policy or 
consequences. 



PERSONALITY 309 

But you may have the mildness of the dove, and 
be possessed with the fatal desire to please. You 
may be a clergyman, to whom such violent parries 
are forbidden. You may be a King (without a Cham- 
berlain near by), when delicacy and moderation are 
necessary for reasons of State. For such as you, the 
retort courteous in one of its many forms. You may 
content yourself with the glib and banal remark, in 
tentative interrogation : 

"Really, you know, one meets so many people !" 

You may let frankness suffice, and boldly, but kindly, 
acknowledge your slip of memory, saying: 

"I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I don't recall you just 
this minute !" or, "I'm afraid you have the advantage 
of me !" 

But such concessions involve an immediate and en- 
thusiastic, if not a hysterical, expression of pleasure 
as soon as the fiend's name is finally divulged — a sop 
to vanity that should be beneath one's manhood to 
grant. We do not, in point of fact, feel much spon- 
taneous pleasure at meeting a character so odiously 
introduced — one who has already used the needle upon 
us in petty torture. Perhaps the only other reply is 
something like this — for it is true, it is kind, and it is 
necessary : 



310 PERSONALITY 

"My dear sir, if I do not immediately recognize your 
face, it is because I am face-blind — an infliction which 
I sincerely regret. Of the thousand persons I have 
met this week, I suppose I could give names to but 
a bare thirty. And most of these either wear goggles, 
are deformed, or excessively ugly, or bark like a dog 
when I meet them. But you, the real inside You, I 
shall recall perfectly, so soon as you remind me of 
your name, and where I happened to see you last; 
for, though I can not always recall names or faces 
myself, I usually recall the individuals who bear 
them." 

So I offer this discussion of a notorious social dis- 
ease for what it is worth, and you may select your 
own remedy. But here, as much as anywhere else in 
the way of social abuse, an ounce of prevention is 
worth a pound of cure, and it is my hope that my 
plaint may fall under the notice of some of the pes- 
tilential bores who are themselves guilty of this in- 
sufferable remark, so that they may never again say, 
suavely, inconsiderately, cruelly : 

"How d'you do, Mr. Smith! You don't remember 
me, do you?" 



ABSENCE 

THE attempt to determine the rationale of ab- 
sence, to seek in it its philosophic meaning and 
results, is not often made by parted friends. Though 
it is looked on, usually, as an unmitigated misfortune, 
it has not that finality which enforces a comprehend- 
ing resignation. Confronted by the great prostrating 
fact of death, we seek, through religion, science or 
quackery, some solution of the mystery, some guide 
to hope. The sickened heart seeks succor; it must 
wring consolation from the fatality. But the analo- 
gous phenomenon of sleep arouses no such investiga- 
tion. We are so accustomed to this minor form of 
death that, though it is as mysterious as permanent 
dissolution, we give it little thought. 

It is so with absence. We regard life's partings 
with friends as inevitable ; we fall into temporary f or- 
getfulness, trusting to awaken into the same old com- 
radeship on the morrow; but we do not look for the 
compensatory good. 

But we do at least understand the rationale of sleep 

311 



312 ABSENCE 

as a recuperative agency, a necessary corollary to the 
work of the day. So absence may be regarded as a 
let-up. from the pleasant endeavor of intimacy. 

With the best of friends we must give and take 
little annoyances, wounds too slight to complain of, 
yet which require time for healing. The newly mar- 
ried husband and wife will learn to adjust themselves 
to a normal amount of friction, and become calloused 
at the exposed spots where vanity or pride is soonest 
hurt. But this very callousness induces a loss of sen- 
sitiveness which changes love into mere friendship. 
We have but to look about us to see this common 
effect of such close intimacy. It is the way of the 
world, the pathetic secret most women lock in their 
hearts. The little bruises have no time thoroughly to 
heal, and in consequence the emotional fiber is tough- 
ened and grows less and less responsive. 

To correct all this is, perhaps, the proper function 
of absence. No matter how near and dear is our 
friend, a meeting after parting makes him more wel- 
come. The statement of this fact would be a platitude 
were it not contrasted with the happy relations of 
couples who have not known separation. The Brown- 
ings, who were not parted for a day after their wed- 
ding, for instance, still stand as types of one of the 



ABSENCE 313 

highest orders of human affection. But we must re- 
gard such harmoniously mated persons as exceptional 
examples of ideal love. There are few enough not 
to affect the general rule that familiarity breeds con- 
tempt. 

The importance of the analysis of absence, however, 
lies in the fact of its explanation of why such exquis- 
itely adjusted and perfectly mated couples are so few. 
May it not be because the intercourse is not often 
broken ? To prove that, however, we should find that 
the sailor, returning after his voyage, is always the 
happiest husband of the happiest wife. Not at all; 
for, if we draw the analogy between temporary ab- 
sences and sleep, this condition of protracted wander- 
ing would be most like the case of an invalid, who is 
incapacitated for long intervals of time. There is a 
definite period of emotional rest which is beneficial, 
but a longer abstinence from companionship creates 
a spiritual loss ; we can see so many other persons, 
do so many things, pass through so many crises, 
that we become spiritually foreign or estranged. We 
may change so much in ideals or in point of view that 
we can not meet on the same terms one who has here- 
tofore been in closest sympathy with us. 

This is one extreme, the disintegrating effect of 



314 ABSENCE 

different environments ; the other is the too close grow- 
ing together of a pair who always share the same 
daily mental food. We have pathetic examples of 
that, too, in old couples, who have become so depend- 
ent one upon another that when one is taken away 
the other can not live alone. Touching as these cases 
are, closely as they conform to the ancient ideals of 
marriage, the two having become marvelously one, it 
is not our best modern conception of affinity, nor of 
mental development. We have learned to respect in- 
dividuality. Not only is the wife no longer the chattel 
and slave of her husband, subject to his whim, molded 
to his theories of life, dutiful, servient, but her con- 
tribution to marital happiness has become a necessary 
and positive inspiration of character and temperament. 
The husband and wife of to-day are wedded sover- 
eigns, each reigning over independent but allied king- 
doms. She has her life where she is queen, he has 
his where he is king, and the two, like Solomon and 
the Queen of Sheba, in amity or in love, bring one to 
the other, strange gifts of great price. 

But the highest development of personality is not 
possible where the harness of the span is fastened too 
closely. Molded by the same environment, witnessing 
the same scenes, the two can give each other little that 



ABSENCE 315 

is new. It is where husband and wife work side by 
side in factory or mine that the most squalid and 
mentally death-like conditions are found. It is the 
man of leisure who sees too much of his wife who 
most often grows to tire of her. The business man, 
who is continually refreshed by contact with his world, 
and whose wife, in his absence, makes the most of 
hers, have, when the lamp is lighted at the end of 
the day, something to exchange. This daily parting 
is for them a spiritual or emotional sleep, and brings 
a regular restorative effect to their union. 

This consideration gives us at least a point of view, 
a way of looking at absence as, in its secret way, a 
blessing, and if it do no more than temper the pain 
of parting that is so much gained. If I must go forth 
to war I shall come back a soldier ; shall not that rev- 
elation of me delight you? I can not speak to a 
stranger, but I am subtly changed by him; I grasp 
new ideas, I know so much more of the world. Shall 
not that help and please you when I bring it back to 
our fireside? Shall we not talk it over and apply it 
to ourselves? I go out for a day seeking butterflies, 
and you, who share my love of entomology, look over 
my prizes when I return, rejoicing in the new addi- 
tions to our collection. Shall you not rejoice as well 



316 ABSENCE 

over every fact of life that I bring after this sad 
absence is over? Shall you not also fight your bat- 
tles and win your victories, and grow in spiritual 
wealth and beauty? Why should we seek to bind 
each other and travel a three-legged race always side 
by side ? 

And when I return your little word that made me 
frown shall be forgotten. I shall have had time to 
see how true it was or from what motive it sprang. 
You, too, will have forgiven some of my carelessness 
and thoughtlessness ; you will have had time to con- 
sider the fact that my faults and virtues spring from 
the same root — that I could not have quick, affection- 
ate impulses without displaying a quick temper also. 
What we know of one another shall have been di- 
gested, and we shall have had time for another meal, 
a further reach into the great unexplored realm of 
individuality, where we shall wander forever, seeking 
new delights. 

Ouida's heroine in Othmar spun this web of fancy 
much too fine. She was afraid to marry, lest a per- 
fect lover become a commonplace husband. After she 
wed she studiously kept him away, lest she should 
grow to know him too well. There's artificial sleep, 
if you like. I shall, I hope, trust my wife too well to 
resort to any such spiritual narcotic ! 



THE KEEPSAKE 

THERE is a major and a minor quality to every 
good gift, qualities that may well be termed al- 
truistic and egoistic elements. We give from two 
motives: first, to confer happiness by the possession 
of an object; and second, to be remembered by that 
gift. We may have one reason or the other, or both, 
for giving; but it is the keepsake quality in presents 
that the lover or the friend has most need to study if 
he would play the game aright. 

There are gifts enough that are purely altruistic, 
the gifts of unselfish love, from our mother's first milk 
to the last friendly offices of the grave. Such gifts 
need little art, for the want speaks loudly and must 
be heard. We give, indeed, in such cases, only what 
we owe to friendship, as we give food to the hungry 
or clothes to the naked. We can not satisfy every 
want, but what we do give is a symbol of our willing- 
ness to give all. Through our so doing the presenta- 
tion becomes not so much an event as a part of the 

317 



318 THE KEEPSAKE 

necessary course of friendship. The father's allow- 
ance, the uncle's jackknife, and such Christmas pres- 
ents as come only because the time calls for the cere- 
mony, forge no new links in the chain of relationship. 
They are debts due us upon the mutual account of 
love. And so we, in the giving, expect nothing more 
than that the recipient should be pleased, — the "oh!" 
and the "ah !" are all our payment. 
As in the old rhyme : 

"When the Christmas morning came, 
Both the children bounced from bed — • 

'Whe-ew! Whe-ew!' 
That was all the children said !" 

and forthwith, the present, which had never been a 
part of us, becomes a part of our friend. We are 
not attempting, in satisfying such desires, to confer 
upon ourselves a vicarious immortality. 

But the lover or the friend has other requirements 
to fulfil. He desires to present a true keepsake, a 
permanent and live thing, not a dead one, an instru- 
ment whose mainspring is memory, that, like a clock, 
shall ring out his hour with musical chimes of recol- 
lection whenever its time comes. It may be called 
egoistic to wish this, but it is not necessarily selfish, 



THE KEEPSAKE 319 

for what better gift can he give than a part of him- 
self? What, then, can he find to give that will serve 
him loyally during his absence ? He is paying no debt, 
now, remember ; he has to do with rites, not rights, — 
not with demands, but delights. He is planting a seed 
whose flower shall be remembrance. 

First, then, a true keepsake must come as a sur- 
prise, not as the answer to a long-felt desire. For, with 
an object too much wished for, associated thoughts 
cluster so closely that the memory of the giver has 
no place to stick. One has wanted it for so long that, 
its possession obtained, what one will think of is of 
that old, envious desire, and not of how it was sat- 
isfied. One must necessarily unconsciously recall one's 
first vivid admiration or one's need, and then, perhaps, 
consciously and shamefully, the donor to whom one 
owes the gift. And so the giver loses in this psycho- 
logical competition. The gift has still its intrinsic 
worth, but none of that extrinsic charm with which, 
as a true keepsake, it should be gilded. 

So you may buy that particular piece of blue Can- 
ton she likes and has admired if you will : but if you 
do, you sacrifice your memory upon the altar of friend- 
ship. What will she remember first and best? Only 
that particular shelf in the cupboard of the curiosity 



320 THE KEEPSAKE 

shop where it used to sit, and the old silver teapot 
that stood beside it ! She will have in her nostrils, 
as she handles it, now, not the perfume of your friend- 
ship, but the dusty, moldy odor of antiques. She 
will not see it illumined by the color of your love, 
so much as by that vagrant shaft of sunshine that 
came through the window to play upon the old mirror. 
It is not her fault, but yours. She is at the mercy 
of the subconscious self. Oh, you have done well to 
please her ! It was kind and generous, — but, in love's 
service, that is not enough. You might have given 
her a keepsake; you have but made a present. She 
will try, — oh, how she will try ! — to be grateful every 
time she looks at it; but you could have made it so 
easy that it would have required no conscious attempt 
of her will. 

So memory plays queer pranks with us. She never 
brings back the important, crucial event first ; she loves 
better the minor episodes of life, and especially the 
little trivial, meaningless accidents, details and curios- 
ities of the commonplace. We forget how Caruso 
sang, but we remember how a cat walked absurdly 
across the stage. May we not, therefore, take advan- 
tage of the quirks of such unreasoning recollections, 
and twist them to our own ends ? 



THE KEEPSAKE 321 

For see ! The opposite method, the reversal of the 
picture, shows how easily we may play upon the fam- 
iliar and the wonted thought, how we may appeal to 
the subconscious. You have but to reach to the plate- 
shelf of your own dining-room and hand down the 
piece of blue Canton and give it her, when, marvel- 
ously, you have given not it, but yourself, into her 
keeping! There's a gift that will last, a constant, de- 
lightful memory of you forever. Why, it is fairly 
soaked in you, and all her envy can but make it the 
more highly prized. Have her eyes turned lingeringly 
upon its beauty? You have turned that longing into 
satisfied pleasure when she thinks how she has used 
it at your board so many, many times. There's a 
color that will never wear off. There's a memory that 
will not crack or chip. There's the true psychology 
of the keepsake. It has become as much a part of 
you, in her thought, as a lock of your hair. Of all 
gifts, those that have been owned and loved by the 
giver are the true memorabilia, and most to be prized, 
most to be swayed by and sweetly spelled. 

There's much difference, too, in the giving of gifts, 
between the satisfying of a want and the gratification 
of a wish. To surprise your friend with the answer- 
ing of a need that was unconscious is a victory that 



322 THE KEEPSAKE 

insures remembrance. There was a man who slept 
for a year on a bed without realizing that it was hard 
and full of lumps. A friend slept with him, once, 
and complained of the discomfort; the owner never 
lay in the bed again without misery. There was a 
case for a gift that would have endured. Had the 
friend but replaced the old mattress by a new one, 
he would have been remembered every night. So it 
is with less humorous cases. The keepsake is meant 
usually not to feed an old hunger, but to help one 
to acquire a new taste. What your friend wishes he 
has so coated with desire that he will never remem- 
ber you who gave it unless you present him with your 
own possession. What he wants he may not know 
that he wants, or, in other words, he may not yet 
desire. You must study him with a friendly eye, you 
must scientifically examine his temperament, his taste, 
his moods; and it will go hard if, whether by para- 
phrasing an expressed desire, or by taking the hint 
from some unconscious admiration, you do not find 
the loadstone that shall attract his magnet. Put not 
your faith in a mere whim, — for of nothing does one 
grow so tired and resentful as of the passed fancy 
— but try him again and again till the test is sure. 
Gifts of one's own handiwork are, of course, true 



THE KEEPSAKE 323 

keepsakes. But the object must be a desirable one, 
it must have some place in the economy of your life, 
and not be a mere superfluity, or else it gathers pity 
rather than remembrance. The most delicate and ex- 
quisite present, though it expresses the loving care 
of your friend, does not fulfil its purpose as a re- 
membrancer, unless it ministers to some need other 
than an esthetic one; and the poorest, crudest bit of 
handwork, if it is usable, will be lovingly preserved, — 
use will gild its worth and color its homely tones. The 
thing that is a mere object of art is, so far as its keep- 
sake value is concerned, a dead thing, and it gathers 
the rust and dust of forgetfulness. It is only itself. 

The true gift must not be too trivial, if it is to min- 
ister to a permanent emotion. If it is too poor, it 
loses itself in the background of one's daily life, it 
becomes, again, merely property, it becomes a part of 
the recipient rather than of the giver. A trifle, if it 
has no previous associations, can hold sentiment, but 
not for long. The case is fragile, and a mood can 
break it. The dead rose may be treasured for a while ; 
but put another beside it, and its perfume of memory 
and sentiment soon dies. No; if a memory is to be 
enshrined, the reliquary must itself be beautiful and 
worthy. It must be a thing apart from common things, 



324 THE KEEPSAKE 

it must testify to its sacred contents. The jewel of 
friendship should be set in a ring of pure gold. The 
thimble she used to wear, the knife he always kept 
in his pocket, — theSe are of a different category, like 
the blue Canton piece that stood upon the sideboard; 
but, though you pick a pebble from the shore upon 
the very day of days, you can not make a gem of it, 
and it will lose luster and fade. 

So, though you can not arbitrarily assign an ex- 
trinsic interest by the mere mandate of the will, there 
are still ways of tricking the memory. There is craft 
in the manner of giving, of which a true psychol- 
ogist can avail himself. To give impulsively, dramat- 
ically, picturesquely, often insures remembrance of the 
presentation by the same appeal to the subconscious 
reflexes of thought. Tear the chain from your neck 
in a mood of magnanimity and give it with a divine 
impulse, and you thread it with jew r els brighter than 
the stars. Hide the ring under her pillow so that 
she shall find it, when, languid and susceptible, she 
prepares for dreams, and you give her a living poem 
she can not forget. 

Does all this seem cold-blooded and premeditated? 
Perhaps; and yet so are memories coerced, — so are 



THE KEEPSAKE 325 

the links riveted upon the lovely fetters of friend- 
ship. We give more than the gift when we give a 
piece of throbbing life. We give an event, not an 
episode; we give an immortal excitement. And in- 
deed, such gifts are themselves keepsakes, though we 
attach to them no concrete object for a symbol. He 
who makes things happen is never forgotten, and she 
who punctuates life with memorable emotions lives 
for aye. 

Consciously or unconsciously done, these are the 
ways in which nature herself is tricked, for we do 
but play her own game. All's fair in love. The thing 
can be overdone, it is true, and we can not always 
succeed with our experiments in the psychological lab- 
oratory; but the secret is there for him who dares 
attempt the reaction. A $ o 

It is more blessed to give flffiftf^loP^eceive, we are 
told, and he who takes his filial ftife^-are joy must 
not find fault if his gifts £&Mtikik§o%r& forgotten. 
Too much giving defeats re^feriftrfat^Sfe^that is the 
effect of the mother's fostering carfe ( p°^en we give 
overmuch we do but create an atrfiyspJtenS'of kindness 
and consideration, a monotonous temperature of love 
that does not pique and kindle the emotions, but keeps 



326 THE KEEPSAKE 

the coals of friendship at the smoldering point. Our 
friend's memory is apt to become jaded by our very 
excess, and then he is at the mercy of the first little, 
solitary gift from another, which makes its own ap- 
peal the more insistently from the contrast with our 
own generosity. The one thing is treasured ardently, 
and all the rest accepted as a matter of course. The 
multiplicity of gifts deadens the sense of relationship; 
the things themselves are no longer hypnotically sug- 
gestive. Of course this can not rob them of their 
altruistic quality, but the lover loses on the investment. 

And so, as there is an art in giving, there should 
be a metaphysic as well, to counteract the effect of 
mere accumulations. If one's gifts are consistently 
original and individual, they may, by this quality, de- 
feat the cloying effect of quantity. Such gifts should 
point all to one purpose, like Cupid's little arrows, 
flying in different directions, all aimed at the same 
heart. The goal is secret, a mysterious truth, unde- 
finable, perhaps; but the object should be felt, even 
if not understood. 

This unity of aim should correlate all one's gift- 
giving. Happy is he of whom it can be said, "Why 
hasn't he given me this? It would be so like him!" 
or, "No one could possibly have given me this but he, 



THE KEEPSAKE 327 

for it is himself !" Some presents must, of course, 
be given altruistically from the sheer delight of giving 
unselfishly, to satisfy a felt want, and with no ulterior 
motive; but these will not matter if the main trend 
of one's giving be toward that end, — the creating in 
our friend's mind of an image of us that will endure, 
an image toward which each gift has an adjuvant and 
a cumulative meaning, all pointing to the ideal of our 
friendship. 

And so, in this game of love, we try to kill two 
birds with one stone. This is the true economy of 
friendship and of mutual happiness. There is room 
enough besides for self-sacrifice, for unrequited de- 
votion, for unrewarded service, — we do all that gladly. 
But may we not, if we can, be happy too in being 
remembered? We must, willy-nilly, build our own 
little egoistic altar, praise-bedecked. The circle of 
selfishness has often been traced through the emotions, 
and one can prove any renunciation, any sacrifice, to 
be due to motives concerned with our own pleasure. 
Love, of all emotions, is most complex; it baffles anal- 
ysis. In its highest form is it most selfish or un- 
selfish? Is service or happiness its greatest reward? 
No one can tell. 

We know, too, that "not to be doing, but to be" 



328 THE KEEPSAKE 

wins love, wherefore such games as giving of gifts 
seem futile and of no avail to preserve remembrance. 
But none the less, if we love we must give, and, giv- 
ing, is it not best to give with thought, with meaning, 
and with purpose, that best gift of all — ourselves? 



THE DECORATIVE VIRTUE 

THERE is an old-time ring about the word 
"gallantry"; it has in it an echo of the days of 
chivalry and romance. One thinks of the ancient cos- 
tume as well as custom — it goes with the adjective 
"arch" and with the verb "to bridle" — suggesting one of 
the lost arts of social amenity. It has a rich, medieval 
color that has faded out of life in these days of the 
matter-of-fact and the practical. Gallantry was, no 
doubt, the chief of those "parts" for which gentlemen 
were noted in the eighteenth century. We have few 
"gentlemen of parts" nowadays; men are content to 
be gentlemen unadorned by such extrinsic charm. For 
this particular quality emphasizes one of the few par- 
adoxical cases in which the part is not included in the 
whole. Gallantry is a supplementary virtue. It is 
not one of the non-essentials, for it has, in its way, a 
decorative quality that distinguishes it from the sterner 
virtues. It is the feather upon the cap of gentleness. 
Only because in modern times gallantry became im- 
possible without the gallant did this fine flower of 

329 



330 THE DECORATIVE VIRTUE 

courtesy with its heavy-sweet perfume run down and 
become a weed. 

The old school of manners has passed with its min- 
uet, its palfrey and its love-locks and ribbons and 
laces. For these the new mode brings the two-step, 
the automobile and the khaki. Etiquette has been re- 
placed by "form" — its rules smack more of the stable 
and the field than of the ballroom. The fundamental 
rules of good breeding survive, but they are, year 
by year, more laxly interpreted for the benefit of haste. 
We pay calls by telephone. We content ourselves with 
following the spirit, rather than the letter of the so- 
cial law. What was characteristic of the old was its 
peace, its grace, its harmony. The newer style makes 
for contest and contrast and force. We have, in short, 
exchanged beauty for strength. 

This change in deportment is exemplified every day 
in our modern, familiar method of getting acquainted. 
We do not, at first, exchange compliments, any more 
than we drop a curtsey or bend the knee. We do 
not kiss a proffered hand, we do not press our hearts 
theatrically — nor do we adopt the pleasant fragrant 
flatteries that went with such polished manners. In- 
stead, we break the ice by means of some pretended 
jocose quarrel audaciously carried on according to the 



THE DECORATIVE VIRTUE 331 

new formulae of accepted privilege. Our first meeting 
is usually carried on along humorous lines instead of 
upon the stately plane of the old noblesse. We, above 
all, do not take our partner too seriously ; we jest, we 
laugh at her, we arraign her with joking persiflage, 
we seek the differences rather than the samenesses be- 
tween us. 

It is all good-humored enough, and all perfectly un- 
derstood — it is quite an established system; it is but 
politeness seen from another angle. But, in its way, 
it is quite as false as the old method. For the fictitious 
praise we have substituted a fictitious dispraise. We 
seek to put each other at our ease by an assumed at- 
tack. It becomes a conversational tourney where the 
points are removed from our spears and the test of 
skill is to entertain as much as possible without in- 
flicting a serious wound. But none the less it is a 
mock battle. Which is better, then, the unreal con- 
flict or the unreal adoration ? Each substitutes excite- 
ment for emotion. 

Our modern manners are athletic ; the old were es- 
thetic. In their social relations our ancestors sought 
to give an atmosphere of beauty to life. We prefer 
the polo game and the hurdle race. They cultivated 
rather the haute manege wherein they could display 



332 THE DECORATIVE VIRTUE 

sensational grace and agility in the volt and demi-volt, 
the caracole, capriole, the curvet and the rest of the 
"raised airs" of classic horsemanship. This delight 
in the mere craft and technical excellence inevitably 
tended to produce an artificiality which went to its 
absurd extreme in the stilted manners of the French 
salons and in the exaggerated elegance of Euphuistic 
discourse. Gallantry became perfunctory, conven- 
tional ; and with it the gallant became a mental figure 
as eccentric as his extraordinary costume. His po- 
liteness, his flattery, his witticisms were as unnatural 
as the titillations from his snuff. Conversation was 
showily barren — polite dialogue was like a string of 
imitation gems. 

It is not strange, then, that with the reaction a puri- 
tanical bluntness seemed to be the only honest mode 
of speech, and that criticism took the place of com- 
pliment. As the cavalier's flowing locks were cut, 
bowl-shaped, so were the verbal floriations trimmed 
down to a sturdier, healthier growth. Time passed 
— gallantry became a lost art, or an alien one, surviv- 
ing only in the distrusted urbanity of the Latin races. 
Women who had before been managed by flattery now 
shied like timid colts at the first word of praise from 



THE DECORATIVE VIRTUE 333 

a stranger. They met compliment with indignation, 
and a tribute was an affront. 

But we have come back, in our cyclic progress, to 
a higher and better view of the meaning and function 
of gallantry, and the word has crept again into our 
speech. It had long survived only in its martial sense, 
and, if we regard that interpretation of the term, we 
may perhaps discover its essential qualities. "Gal- 
lantry under fire." How the phrase stirs one ! What 
is it, and where is its parallel in the petty conflicts of 
peace ? 

An Irish corporal, we will say, retreating with his 
disorganized company pursued by Zulus, sees his lieu- 
tenant fall, shot through the leg. To attempt to res- 
cue him is almost certain death; to fall back to cover 
and save his ammunition would be perfectly justifiable. 
Yet he runs forward, picks up the officer and holds 
the enemy at bay till he has, after a terrible ordeal, 
brought the wounded man back to shelter and safety. 
This is gallantry under fire. It is worthy the Victoria 
Cross. In a single instant he has become famous "for 
valor." 

But what of the soldier who, all day and all night 
and all day again, lies with his comrades in the rifle- 



334 THE DECORATIVE VIRTUE 

pit, swept by a hail of bullets from an unseen foe, 
scourged by heat, thirst, hunger and loss of blood? 
Surely his valor is as great. But it is not gallantry; 
it is duty well performed. One service is as worthy 
of praise as the other, but they are different things. 

It should be easy to paraphrase this in terms of 
social relations. We may imagine a fictitious case: 
Miss Payson, returning with her lover, who has suf- 
fered an accident, to his rooms, that she may attend 
him till the doctor arrives, finds another woman, a 
stranger, her rival, waiting for him. The situation 
is compromising. Miss Payson would be justified in 
thinking the worst of the girl, and of treating her 
with mere politeness. But the very extremity of the 
girl's danger, her helplessness, inspires magnanimity, 
chivalry, some superlative of kindness in Miss Pay- 
son's soul. And so she leaps to her rescue, saying: 
"How glad I am that you were here, for unfortunately 
I can not stay. And I do hope that you will call on 
me soon and let me know how he is !" It is a bit of 
true gallantry. 

Again, suppose another extraordinary chance of dis- 
playing the same noble trait. A girl at a restaurant, 
publicly abandoned, after a tiff, by her caddish escort, 
boldly comes over to Miss Payson's table and asks 



JHE DECORATIVE VIRTUE 335 

protection. Her act is audacious, unjustified, even 
reproachable. But again she arouses, by her very 
desperation, a nobility above conventional dicta. "Do 
sit down with us," says Miss Payson ; "we have been 
wishing all the evening that we might know you!" 
See how the abounding good measure of courtesy is 
pressed down and running over in gallantry ! There's 
a superfluous ounce of blood in some persons that 
manifests itself in such extremes of sensitive senti- 
ment. You may call this merely noblesse oblige, but 
if it goes no farther or deeper than that, it is spir- 
itual nobility allied to a quickness of mental percep- 
tion and adaptation that makes the act picturesque. 
Gallantry of such sort becomes the poetry of which 
kindness and honor are the prose versions. It is the 
apotheosis of Christian duty, a quixotic extension of 
the Golden Rule. 

The old gallant sparkled ; his gallantry, with its bon 
mot and its deftly turned flattery, shed a luster upon 
himself only. It was he who was the hero, the chief 
actor in the encounter. But, in this newer, finer gal- 
lantry it is the recipient of the complimentary action 
who is gilded by the tribute. The gift is altruistic. 
Such gallantry contains, always, a deference and a 
humility on the part of the performer that adds to 



336 THE DECORATIVE VIRTUE 

the worth of his deed. He is like the king who washes 
the feet of the beggars, for, though he loses none of 
his own nobility in so doing, he dignifies the object 
of his regard. There was little gallantry to King 
Cophetua's historic act, for he did but raise the beggar 
maid up to his own level. One to be gallant must 
voluntarily stand aside and put the other in the place 
of honor, and one must do it with grace. The old 
style gallantry was a test of mental alertness; this 
rarer form is a test of spiritual delicacy. 

Yet, as in the case of the corporal who rescues his 
lieutenant, this social act must, to be gallant, to dis- 
tinguish it from the mere duty of the situation, be 
attended by something of flourish. It must be dra- 
matic, picturesque, poetic. It must come in a flash, 
like lightning, to cause both surprise, admiration and 
illumination. 

We may define gallantry, then, as an unexpected 
and unnecessary rise to courtesy in a social emergency 
— a highly specialized form of politeness. Now, cour- 
tesy is latent in us all; no doubt it can, at least, be 
taught to any one who has a trace of social talent. 
But it takes something nobler and more poetic to add 
the charm and brilliancy which make true gallantry. 



THE DECORATIVE VIRTUE 337 

Mere presence of mind may rescue one with honor 
from a difficult situation, but to come out of it with 
gallantry, to turn the tables beautifully upon one's 
opponent, to cast the coals of fire upon his head with 
a pyrotechnic art, this requires social genius. 

Our illustrations are, of course, extreme forms of 
gallantry — the quality is exhibited in many other ways 
and in varying degrees of histrionic value. It ranges 
from generosity to magnanimity, from unselfishness to 
renunciation, from the hostess who deliberately mis- 
pronounces a word that she may not shame her illit- 
erate guest to that English admiral who destroyed his 
own surplus of ammunition because his enemy was 
ill-supplied. Essentially it is a complimentary action ; 
there need be no word of praise spoken. 

The practise of gallantry has never died out; its 
larger, better form has always stimulated those sensi- 
tive to such opportunities as it affords. But in its 
minor aspects it may almost be regarded as having 
died, to be revived in these latter days. It comes with 
the renaissance of the esthetic instinct in modern life, 
with the age of prosperity and leisure. It will become 
again the social game, a novel form of mental exer- 
cise, a peity cult, a free-masonry of the Illuminati. 



338 THE DECORATIVE VIRTUE 

One can see it on the increase already, and in its ini- 
tial aspect it presents a humorous side. We, who have 
been using the racket and the cricket-bat, must learn 
the wand and the grace-hoops! We, who have only- 
run and jumped, must perforce learn to fly! There 
will be a merry time coming, when the stock-broker 
takes up gallantry and practises his art upon the be- 
diamonded dowager! 

But there are some to whom it comes naturally 
enough — the connoisseurs in life, the devotees of men- 
tal grace; and, to encounter such a one, if one has 
not been trained to the art, often proves embarrassing. 
One suddenly wakes up to the fact that there are un- 
expected wonders possible in the commonplace. It is 
like finding jewels in the gutter. 

There was a beautiful woman, once, who delighted 
in beauty in others and who often complained of the 
conventionalities which prevented her from giving her 
tribute to her fair sisters. One day she broke down 
this artificial barrier, and, upon the street, she stopped 
a young girl whose face she admired. "I want to 
tell you that you're the prettiest girl I have sttn to- 
day," said the gallant one. To this gratuity the dis- 
concerted maid could only, at first, stammer, "Why, 
the idea!" It was pathetic. She had no response at 



THE DECORATIVE VIRTUE 339 

hand for so surprising and unexpected a compliment. 
But that she was pleased was evident by the way she 
soon rallied to meet the emergency. She knew that 
she had been inadequate to the situation, that some- 
thing was expected of her; and, inarticulate as she 
was, she did her best to prove worthy, groping blindly 
for the retort courteous. Finally she brought out, in 
a burst of gratitude, "Well, if you think I'm pretty, 
I can only say ditto!" The remark, equivocal as it 
Was, was understood. She, too, had proved herself 
capable of gallantry. Perhaps never in her life be- 
fore had she risen so high in the amenities. 

Many women, however, are so unaccustomed to con- 
sidering compliments as sincere that they meet them 
with an assumption of anger. "If you say things like 
that, I'll not talk to you!" is a common way of ac- 
cepting praise. She might at least say, "You can 
hardly induce me to believe that," if she can not re- 
turn the favor on the fly and have the grace to answer, 
"I'm delighted to know that you think so !" 

For gallantry should challenge gallantry — no lesser 
mode of feeling can compete with it. It should put 
one on one's mettle and bring out the best one has of 
sympathy and appreciation. It should lubricate our 
human relations. How jarring most personal inter- 



340 THE DECORATIVE VIRTUE 

course seems, after one has come into contact with 
those who practise this delicate refinement, this pretty 
religion of ultra-courtesy ! But one must be educated 
to this point of view — we are too used to the realism 
of the times. "Kiss me good-by !" said a wife, as her 
husband left her, one morning, to go to his business. 
"Why, I've kissed you once already !" he replied, and 
never noticed the bitter humor of his remark. He 
was not unkind, he was not lacking in affection, but 
in gallantry. 

It is women who excel at this fine art. The gal- 
lantry of woman to woman is as characteristic of the 
sex as is her jealousy. It is not so applicable to lit- 
erary exploitation, for it has never crystallized into 
the formula of a newspaper joke. Satire is always 
easier than appreciation, and so, while we have writ- 
ten much of woman's weakness and inconsistency, 
woman's gallantry has been left to the larger-minded 
novelists to describe. But this dramatic quality is one 
of the finest fruits of her restoration to mental equal- 
ity. It has come with her first awakening to "class 
consciousness" and, in fine women, is already the sign 
of a perfected alliance offensive and defensive. The 
true type of modern woman is, in a finer sense than 



THE DECORATIVE VIRTUE 341 

the political one, the champion of her sex. The un- 
protected damsel in distress often finds succor first, 
not from the arrant knight, but from her chivalrous 
sister. The type of the woman of the day who as- 
sumes man's freedom and opportunity is not Made- 
moiselle de Maupin, but Jeanne d'Arc. 

If you have ever seen your hostess select the least 
promising, the predestined wall-flower from her guests, 
bring her out into the center of the stage, throw the 
pink calcium upon her, show off her good points and 
keep her worst in the shadow with the cleverness of 
a professional photographer, make her the heroine of 
the company, and all with an exquisite sacrifice of 
her own importance, you have witnessed gallantry of 
a sort far more common among women than among 
men. Perhaps women are more facile because they 
have a talent for self-sacrifice. 

From man to man such tributes are well-nigh im- 
possible. Men show their mutual esteem mainly by 
jocular abuse. They fear sentiment, being unable to 
differentiate it from sentimentality. Nothing is so 
mortifying to them as to be discovered guilty of feel- 
ing. A man can rise to heights of nobility and mag- 
nanimity; he can, like the knights of romance, throw 



342 THE DECORATIVE VIRTUE 

away his shield if his opponent is unguarded, he can 
in his way be chivalrous, but gallantry from man to 
man is rare. The defeated suitor, for instance, sel- 
dom rises to the heights of courtesy toward his rival 
that is often attained by women defeated in love. 

There was one, for instance, who, after having been 
jilted, presented to the second woman, the new love, 
a tintype of her lover taken as a babe— her dearest 
possession. Unnecessary, unexpected, dramatic, the 
act was one of pure gallantry. The conquered gen- 
eral may haul down his flag and present his sword 
to his enemy with grace, but he can not salute the 
victorious banner. So men in their social relations 
live up to their code of honor— women rise above all 
law. 

In the relations between men and women gallantry 
is most picturesque, and it achieves its climax in court- 
ship. Here it is inherent and essential ; it is courtship. 
But in such a battle of flowers no man can rival a 
! gallant woman, for this is par excellence the woman's 
.field. Man's ineptitude in wooing is woman's imme- 
morial complaint of him. All his banter, his raillery, 
his whimsical pleasantry can not equal a single act of 
gallantry. The young girl admires chivalry in men 
and prefers it, on the whole, to strength or wisdom. 



THE DECORATIVE VIRTUE 343 

It is not merely a selfish longing, for it is the worship 
of an abstract principle, it is the attitude of gallantry 
in itself she worships ; and she delights in the tribute 
whether it is paid to herself or another. In a word, 
she craves the poetry of life. For women, artists in 
social affairs, never lose their sight of the ideal, how- 
ever impossible it may be to find it realized. Their 
interest lies in the potential, not the dynamic power 
of the moment. The present, for them, always holds 
romance, for it holds the possibility of emotional ad- 
venture. And of this gallantry is the outward and 
visible sign. 

It is, perhaps, because we have become used to re- 
garding the beautiful as a luxury rather than as a 
necessity that gallantry, nowadays, excites surprise. 
The ancient costumes, weapons, tools and architecture 
all were beautiful, and one was familiar with the es- 
thetic atmosphere. We think now only of objects of 
art as beautiful, and, in the same way, in the give and 
take of our every-day life, we do not expect to minister 
to any higher sense than that of honesty. We trust 
the plain uncolored version of the drama of the com- 
monplace and the decorative virtues are regarded sus- 
piciously. It is a pity, for it is surely as interesting 
to meet the stranger with the doffed cap as with the 



344 THE DECORATIVE VIRTUE 

clasped fist. One has only to try it — to enter, even 
if experimentally, into this charming relation with the 
first newcomer to discover a vivid experience well 
worth tasting. The game of kindness can be made as 
thrilling as the game of mutual depreciation, for, when 
you play it aright, cooperation is as exciting as com- 
petition. 



THE END 



